Ethereal Days
by Cynical-Banshee
Summary: A oneshot series to be updated at my leisure, featuring KyouHomu and MamixOC (Kiku). This can be considered the spiritual successor to Silent Melody, but it is not required to read that story to understand this one. Some chapters will contain smut. Chapter 14: Homura has changed. [ON INDEFINITE HIATUS]
1. A New Year

Yes, I'm back. I'm never escaping this damn fandom.

* * *

Chapter 1: A New Year

Homura was quietly enjoying a glass of wine on her apartment balcony when Madoka appeared at the corner of her vision.

Such was the business of the divine; that was, utterly disregarding one's preconceptions of how the world worked. Even in Homura's world, or rather the one she had left behind, sudden materialization usually meant danger. The kind that usually called for immediate destruction.

But perhaps that was simply reading too much into it, or maybe her instincts had dulled over time. Either way, the time traveler only set her glass down on the little table beside her and turned to face the Goddess fully.

In spite of her lack of visible surprise, this was indeed a first. She had communicated with Madoka through various means ever since her ascension, of course, and in the months that had followed her official retirement from magical girl activities, the girl had occasionally murmured into Homura's mind. But never had the Goddess manifested herself within the physical plane, and unannounced, when there wasn't an immediate crisis.

Or perhaps there was a crisis, and she simply wasn't aware of it yet.

"Not like you to just drop by like this," Homura commented, using a thumb to wipe away a drop of wine from her lip.

A bit of her surprise must have leaked through, because Madoka smiled knowingly. "It would be an abuse of my powers if it was. I'm not supposed to meddle too extensively in mortal affairs, you know."

"According to who's rules?" Homura asked, though she didn't expect a real answer.

The pink haired girl's smile deepened. "My own, I suppose. Though I didn't make them."

Another non-answer. It figured.

"Well…" Homura began, lifting her glass and swirling its contents before her nose. "I don't imagine you came for some alcohol."

Madoka giggled, holding one slender hand to her mouth. She was dressed in her ordinary looking school uniform, and not the flowing robes of her divine form. It eased Homura's mental state some, though that was probably the reason for it.

"Of course, not, silly. Goddesses don't drink!" Madoka exclaimed. Homura quietly filed that bit of information away in her mind. "I just came to wish you a happy new year."

Oh, yes. Of course. She should have known. It was late in the night of January 1st, and they had returned from the mass celebration Mami had hosted in her apartment not too long ago. Kyouko was actually collapsed on their bed in the room behind her, snoring away the effects of the booze. The redhead was going to have a splitting headache in the morning, but Homura had no sympathy. She had warned her girlfriend multiple times not to overdo it.

Besides, a hung over Kyouko meant Homura would be on parental duty for a day. And Homura secretly liked to spoil Kyouko, just a little.

"Do goddesses celebrate the new year?" Homura asked teasingly, taking a small sip from her glass. Mitakihara was unusually lively below her, still caught in the revels of the new year. The city seemed to glow contentedly.

She expected an equally lighthearted response, but Madoka just sighed wistfully and leaned back in her chair, golden eyes disappearing behind her eyelids. It appeared that part of her physiology would always betray her divinity.

"Oh, you know me," Madoka said, waving a hand flippantly. "I exist in the past, present, and future simultaneously. Time doesn't mean much to me. I barely remembered to stop by here today!"

Homura snorted at that, tilting her head back and finishing off the wine. It burned pleasantly down the length of her throat, and she actually found herself wiping her mouth with her sleeve as she set the glass down again.

Madoka watched her with a bemused expression. "I never took you for the drinking type."

"I'm really not," the shield user sighed, turning her chair so she could talk to Madoka directly. Her friend did the same. "But I'm learning how to enjoy myself."

"Learning from Kyouko's example, I assume?" the Goddess asked, eyes flitting briefly towards the curtains that separated the balcony from Homura's bedroom.

Homura felt a small smile tugging at her lips at the redhead's mention. "Maybe not that much."

"Oh, but you two are _so_ cute together," Madoka gushed, almost bouncing up and down in her seat. For a moment she was reminiscent of her former self. "I check in from time to time, and seeing you guys cuddle is _very_ therapeutic."

Homura flushed hotly at the revelation. "Is there a way to goddess-proof my room for when I need privacy?" She tried to take another sip from her glass to hide her face, before remembering it was spent and putting it back awkwardly.

"Oh, don't worry. I've got an NSFW setting, just in case," Madoka assured her. "I don't expect you to live like a nun."

"A what?" Homura asked, but her friend was already speaking over her.

"Though I can't say the same for Sayaka," Madoka quipped, resting a cheek in her hand. "I always tell her not to mess with the observation room, but of course she does it anyway. She's very impressed by Kyouko's, uh, 'technique.'"

Homura burned hotly at what her friend mean by that, but her embarrassment was briefly abated when Madoka's hair shifted gently around her small face.

The Goddess didn't wear pigtails anymore. Even when she appeared before Homura like this, the spitting image of her human self, the golden eyes weren't the only thing that gave everything away. Those pink locks had hung free every since the ascension, falling just past her shoulders. It added to the air of sophistication that surrounded her former love, along with the glowing irises and the general sense that Homura was talking to someone who could obliterate her in an instant, because Madoka probably could.

It was a firm departure from the way she had sort of babied Madoka in the past. They weren't even equals anymore. Homura was the inferior one now.

At least it had made giving up on her a little easier.

Her mind was tugged back into the present moment by Madoka's voice, and she refocused on the girl sitting in front of her.

"So, tell me how everyone's been doing!" she commanded, dropping her chin into both hands and leaning forward intently. "I'll admit I'm guilty of checking up on you more than the others…"

Homura just smiled bemusedly, not knowing whether to feel flattered or intruded upon. Opposite extremes tended to meet often when one dealt with gods.

"We just got back from Mami's place," she said, brushing a black strand of hair aside. "All the parties are held there, for some reason. I suppose she has the largest apartment."

"And Kiku had convince the store owner to sell them booze," Madoka added dryly.

Homura chuckled at that. She wasn't used to hearing the girl make crude comments like that, but it wasn't exactly bad.

"Everyone's more or less doing fine," she surmised, shrugging. "Things are normal, or as normal as they can be for people like us."

"I'll have to admit even I was surprised when you decided to quit hunting entirely," Madoka said, drumming her fingers against her cheek. "Kyubey was right when he said this peace probably won't last forever."

"You're the goddess," Homura sighed, more than a little tired of hearing that argument. "Does it ever end?"

Madoka's eyes flashed, and she smiled slyly at Homura. "You know I can't answer that."

Homura tried to maintain eye contact with those golden irises and found that she couldn't; her body wouldn't let her. Perhaps it was the wine doing its work. She was still blushing slightly from earlier, and the alcohol was the only thing keeping her from feeling the winter chill. It hadn't started snowing yet, but she supposed it would soon enough.

"So did anything interesting happen at the party?" Madoka asked, scaling back her aura a bit.

"We watched the countdown," Homura replied, trying to remember what else they had done. Just a lot of talking. "Kyouko was all big on doing that New Year's kiss thing."

The Goddess grinned. "Did she get it?"

Now it was Homura's turn to smile. "Of course she did."

"Anything else?"

Homura frowned as she thought back to the long night she had just had, and remembered something that made her lip quirk up briefly. "Yeah, there was something else."

"Do tell me."

"Kiku kissed Mami and confessed to her in front of everyone," Homura revealed, smiling despite herself.

Homura felt a weird sort of pride upon realizing she had just made a goddess gape. "You're lying," Madoka whispered, both hands covering her mouth.

"You know me better than that," Homura countered, grinning wider the more she thought about the memory. "I mean, I was surprised too. She didn't tell anyone what she was planning. But Mami was caught off guard the most, I think."

"What did Mami say?" Madoka asked breathlessly, obviously delighted by the news. Homura resisted the urge to giggle herself, since it would be unlike her, instead crossing her legs beneath the table.

"She said yes," she replied, raising her hands in a noncommittal way. "They're giving it a shot, at the very least. Which is a relief, actually. I half expected her to say no."

"Same," Madoka murmured, still digesting this latest development. Homura would have assumed that the Goddess of all people would already know, considering Kiku and Mami were both magical girls, but she supposed the girl was busy in her own right, running the universe and everything. "Well, you and Kyouko were all the rage last year, so I guess it was their turn."

Homura rolled her eyes. "We were not 'all the rage.' Besides, Kiku has wanted to be with Mami before I even met Kyouko. It was long overdue."

"Mmm," Madoka agreed, waving a finger in the air as if to add emphasis. A shower of golden dust seemed to follow her finger around, or maybe it was just Homura's imagination. "I've been shipping those two since Kiku _contracted_ , for crying out loud. Do you realize how terribly romantic I found it when she made her wish? I just _had_ to see it though."

Homura raised an eyebrow, skeptical at the idea that a goddess had any business shipping her patrons with each other. Next she would be hearing that Madoka watched divine sitcoms in her free time, but who was she to dictate the habits of a goddess?

"You should pop by sometime and congratulate her," she suggested, half joking and half not. Though her friends more or less believed her when she said the Goddess really existed, a little tangible proof wouldn't hurt either. It was a little selfish, maybe.

Madoka just smirked the way she always did when she was about to say no. "Sure, that visit will go over well. 'Hi, I'm Madoka, your local goddess. Just wanted to say congrats for getting hooked up!'"

Homura sighed. "Well, you don't have to say it like _that._ And you aren't exactly local. _"_

Her friend just giggled. "I know," she admitted, clasping both hands together and turning to gaze down at Mitakihara. "But a lot's changed for you in the past year, hasn't it?"

"I feel like I think that every year," Homura said, playing absentmindedly with her wine glass. She strangely felt like having more.

Madoka's eyes followed Homura's, and her lip curved momentarily. With a wave of a hand, the glass in Homura's hand suddenly refilled itself to the brim. The time traveler flinched at the unexpected happening, accidentally sloshing a bit of the drink onto the table.

"I'll admit the past two years have been rather transformative for you," the Goddess said, "But I imagine that's better than stagnating."

Homura just stared at her friend, wondering if the girl knew just how utterly Jesus-esque that wine filling had been, but decided not to comment.

"Well, I hope I hit equilibrium soon," she said, taking a hesitant sip from the wine. It tasted sweeter than it had before. She continued taking timid gulps as Madoka watched her knowingly.

"No one runs out of problems to fix," the pink haired girl corrected, tracing more pixie dust behind her. "First you had to eliminate your literal demons, and the past year was spent eradicating your personal ones. The only question is…what's next?"

Homura thought about that for a moment, before deciding the question was probably rhetorical. "I don't know," she admitted, growing increasingly invested in the wine. It was dizzyingly good.

Madoka smiled almost enviously. "That's just the thing, Homu-chan. You have the luxury of mystery, of discovery. If there's one thing I miss about being mortal, it's the option of ignorance. Omniscience gets boring pretty fast."

"I don't know," Homura shrugged. "There were times when knowing the future would have come in pretty handy."

"But you've left those times behind, haven't you?" Madoka countered, and Homura raised her glass briefly in admittance. "Enjoy the unknown, Homura. Enjoy your days with Kyouko, which may or may not be numbered. I can't really say."

That last thought made Homura purse her lips a little, but the Goddess wasn't wrong in the slightest. Still, it was a little ironic. Exactly a year ago she had stood atop a hill with her lover and decided to face the unknown, despite her reluctance.

Now she was embracing it wholeheartedly.

"This wine is rather good," Homura replied at last, in lieu of deepening the conversation. She had lost her stomach for intense dialogue.

Madoka just sighed affectionately, rising from her seat. "I suppose my time is up," she said, cocking her head as if listening to an internal voice. "Sayaka's telling me to get up there and help her with the souls claimed by the Cycle. There are no off days for a goddess."

Homura laughed. "I can't imagine Sayaka volunteering to pick up your slack while you were here."

"I'm her boss, so she didn't have to volunteer," Madoka replied with a wink. "I've got to get going. It was good to see you again, Homura. Tell Kyouko hello for me, would you? And that I also greatly approve of her 'technique.'"

She made air quotes as she said that, laughing to herself. Homura went beet red and rushed forward, but the Goddess was already fading away, the lights of the city visible through her torso.

"Madoka!" Homura barked instead, frustrated.

The girl's mirthful laughter seemed to echo around the time traveler. "Good night, Homura," she chuckled. "And happy new year!"

Then Homura was alone, standing abandoned on the balcony with a half filled wine glass in hand.

Grumbling to herself, she downed the rest of it in one gulp and went back inside, muttering about cheeky goddesses getting away with too much.

* * *

Once in her apartment, Homura changed and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, trying to get the taste of alcohol out of her mouth. She knew how bad the stuff smelled if left overnight.

Ready for bed, she walked into her bedroom and stopped when she found Kyouko sprawled haphazardly across the mattress, placed diagonally so that she took the entire thing up for herself. Shaking her head slowly, Homura leaned over and scooped the redhead up in her arms, her enhanced body making the taste easy.

That seemed to rouse her lover, who squinted blearily up at Homura through a drunken haze. "Hommmraaa," Kyouko slurred, her cheeks and neck flushed from drinking. She was also perspiring gently, and Homura found her eyes following a lone bead of sweat down the redhead's collarbone before checking herself.

"Get out of these clothes," she commanded, sitting Kyouko down on the bed and unbuttoning her shirt. The girl was still fully dressed, having not bothered to do anything other than fling herself on the bed, and Homura had been too tired to say otherwise.

"Who'r you?" Kyouko muttered to herself, stuck between being drunk and half asleep. When Homura tried to pull the redhead's shirt off she fought against it, trying weakly to push the shield user away. "Geroff me! I've got a wife!"

"I'm not your wife, Kyouko," Homura sighed, though she was somewhat touched that the redhead remained faithful, even when she was too drunk to recognize her lover.

Eventually she managed to get Kyouko down to a tank top and underwear, leaving the discarded clothes on the floor for now. Circling the bed, she crawled in beside the redhead and pulled the blanket over both of them, before reaching over to turn off the light.

Turning, Homura nuzzled close to Kyouko's chest, putting up with the smell of alcohol to share some of the girl's warmth. Kyouko draped an arm over her and sighed, obviously exhausted from partying so hard. The girl had zero restraint, but that was one of the things Homura liked about her.

"Wife," Kyouko muttered again, before falling asleep at last. Homura had to fight the urge to laugh out loud.

"Maybe one day, Kyouko," Homura whispered, pressing a brief kiss to the girl's jaw before falling asleep herself.

All in all, not a bad way to start the year.

* * *

A couple days late as usual, but here's this year's New Years oneshot. I figured it was a good way to start (yet) another foray into the Madoka fandom, though this time I'm keeping it purely restricted to oneshots, and it will be updated at my leisure.

Also I will mention again that this oneshot series is based almost entirely on the universe found within _Silent Melody_ , which is the other meguca fic I've completed. This should become rather apparent with the reappearance of OC's like Kiku, who finally has a shot with Mami because I felt bad for leaving that end loose in the original story.

But for those who have never even touched _Silent Melody_ before and don't wish to read it (I don't blame you, shit's hella long), you should at least keep the following things in mind:

1\. This world entirely ignores Rebellion.

2\. Kiku Hanezawa is an OC I created to pair with Mami, so no, you didn't not miss something huge from the anime. I don't know about including any of the other OCs, such as Mishki or Four, until I know how many people are open to the idea. So please let me know. But at the very least, Kiku x Mami will be getting some much needed closure.

3\. Homura and Kyouko are now sharing a soul. Take that as you will, it's just something that happened in _Silent Melody_ , which I suppose is completely spoiled for you now that you've read this. Oops...

4\. There _is_ magic per usual in this universe, but the various magical girls of Mitakihara have quit their previous lifestyles, for various reasons I lack the time, space, or energy to explain now.

5\. There will be smut chapters (because I am shameless).

But other than that, all other usual assumptions may stand.

I wasn't even planning to write for Madoka Magica ever again, but, well...I'm a liar. Yeah. Let's leave it at that.

Thanks for reading!

~Banshee


	2. Homura loses her memory

Chapter 2: Homura loses her memory

"That has got to be the worst horror movie I've ever seen," Homura muttered, leaning back against Kyouko's chest with a disgruntled look on her face.

"I've seen worse," Kyouko admitted, reaching over to shut the television off with the remote. She shifted to rest Homura's form more comfortably atop her own frame. "But yeah, that was pretty bad."

Mami had had the idea to hold a movie night in Homura's apartment, insisting that the four of them hadn't spent nearly enough time with each other as of late. So she and Kiku had walked into the apartment that evening intent of spending some "quality time," which apparently meant watching a crappy movie and making sarcastic remarks about how bad it was the entire time.

"Still, it looks like you two managed to enjoy yourselves," Kiku said from her seat on the carpet, eyeing the young couple suggestively.

Homura shifted self consciously in Kyouko's arms, wanting to slip free of the girl's grasp but knowing the timing would be suspect. She hadn't really minded it when the redhead pulled her into her lap about halfway through the movie, since they had been under cover of darkness, but now that they were beneath the light she was beginning to second guess that decision. She wasn't that big on PDA.

Kyouko just stuck her tongue out at the brunette, waggling it teasingly. "You're just jealous."

Kiku's lips curved up into a sly smile. "Maybe I am." The playful grin on Kyouko's face slowly dropped into a glare as the two girls engaged in a staring contest.

"Excellent," Homura sighed, rolling her eyes. "You can both fight to the death for my affections."

Kyouko shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm down for that."

"Not if you destroy another building, you aren't," Mami quipped from beside Kiku. She had been quietly enjoying a cup of tea until that very moment. "Last time you sparred someone I had to start going to a different supermarket."

"The old one priced suspiciously low anyway," Kyouko said defensively. She unlatched one of her hands from Homura's stomach to raise it for emphasis. "Plus they had CCTV. _Very_ difficult to steal from there. It was basically useless."

"Aside from those who actually paid for the food," Homura snorted, pinching the redhead's wrist in reprimand.

Kyouko grinned sheepishly. "I'm sure they appreciate the exercise from the longer walk."

"I certainly don't," Mami muttered to herself, downing the rest of the tea.

"Speaking of things we don't appreciate," Homura interjected, "Who's idea was it to even watch that movie?"

The other three girls went silent, unwilling to accept responsibility for the wasted two hours. Suddenly Kiku brightened, and she clapped her hands together.

"You know Homura, I think I've got just the thing. I just might be able to make you forget that movie completely."

The shield user raised an eyebrow. "Really."

The brunette nodded. "It's all rooted in illusionary magic, of course," she explained, lifting the hand she wore her ring on. "I can't erase the fact that the event happened, but I can trick your mind into thinking it didn't."

"Hm," Homura thought, rubbing her chin. "You know what, I think I'll take you up on that," she decided, falling off the couch and, consequently, Kyouko's grip as well. The redhead glared irritably at Kiku for a brief moment, and the brunette could only shrug.

"Try to clear your mind," Kiku suggested, twisting the ring on her finger. A moment later a flash of green light engulfed her body, and she was squatting on the floor in full magical gear.

"Are you sure this is a safe procedure?" Mami interrupted, reaching out to push Kiku's dominant hand back down. "Have you ever tried this on someone else?"

"Of course I have!" the brunette insisted, pouting at being doubted. "Homura isn't my guinea pig or anything."

[ _But you are mine,_ ] Kyouko thought telepathically to Homura, who blushed at the girl's implied meaning.

"Well, did it work last time?" Mami asked, crossing her arms over her chest expectantly.

"Uh…" Kiku fingered the hem of her skirt sheepishly. "I mean, sort of. Mostly! He just sort of, um, forgot what year it was."

The blonde stared at her.

"What? He saw me transforming!" Kiku protested, holding her hands before her. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"Be a little more _careful_ , perhaps?" Mami sighed, putting two fingers against her forehead.

[ _I don't see what the big deal is,_ ] Kyouko thought to Homura. Ever since their souls had merged, telepathy had become significantly easier for them, almost effortless. [ _I mean, I've walked in on you 'transforming' before._ ]

[ _She was being literal, Kyouko._ ]

[… _Oh._ ]

"Anyways!" Kiku broke off, obviously trying to change the subject as Mami gave her a cross look. "I'm sure it'll work this time, so just prepare yourself!"

"Preparing," Homura sighed, closing her eyes as Kiku put both hands on either side of her head.

Breathing in deeply, the brunette drew upon her powers, a faint glow emanating form the tips of her fingers. Homura bit her lip as she felt the girl's magic affecting her, clenching her fists and fighting the urge to reject it with her own body. Like grief sharing, it was best to keep herself as relaxed as possible.

Kyouko and Mami watched the spectacle with intrigue, as the light slightly intensified. Homura's eyes seemed to clench behind the lids, and the look on Kiku's face betrayed a little nervousness.

Then a moment later it was over, the light disappearing as Kiku fell back onto the carpet, breathing heavily. Homura slumped over herself, momentarily unconscious.

"Woah," the brunette muttered, pushing her hair back. "That was a lot more tiring than I expected. Must be because Homura's another puella magi…"

"Homura?" Kyouko said, kneeling down from the couch and lifting the girl from the floor. She shook her gently, watching for movement behind the eyelids. "Are you okay?"

The shield user's eyes slid blearily open, struggling to focus on the redhead, who tilted her head expectantly.

"Blarghlnuffuh," she grumbled at last, looking strangely disoriented.

"Lovely," Kiku appraised, before walking over and picking up the disc case the movie had been in. "So, do you recognize this?" she asked, holding the picture in front of Homura.

The raven haired girl squinted at it. "Um…no?" she said, almost timidly.

"Well I'll be," Mami murmured. "It worked."

"See? I told you," Kiku said smugly, putting both hands to her hips. "You guys should really have some more faith in-"

"Um, who are you people again?" Homura asked politely, reaching up to rub tiredly at her eyes.

There was a pindrop silence in the room. Homura stared confusedly at the lot of them, questions evidence on her face.

One of them coughed awkwardly, but it was enough to break the moment.

"WHAT THE FUCK, KIKU?" Kyouko bellowed, nearly dropping Homura as she sprang to her feet, panic obvious on her face.

"Woah woah woah! Wait, I can fix this!" the brunette shouted, staggering backwards when Kyouko pulled her spear out of thin air and advanced up on her, menace in every step.

"Like hell you can!" the redhead snapped, slamming the butt of her spear between them. It broke straight through the wooden flooring, but she hardly cared. "My girlfriend's got amnesia now!"

Mami sighed, still seating calmly on the floor. "And you wondered why I didn't let you out in the beginning, Kiku."

Homura, meanwhile, had gone completely bug eyed, scrabbling backwards until her spine was pressed firmly against the couch. "Just what _are_ you people?" she gaped, eyes glued to the softly glowing weapon in Kyouko's hands. "How did you do that?"

"Oh, you can do it too," Mami reminded the girl, catching her attention. "More than her, actually. Guns, grenades, you've got them all."

Homura paused for a brief moment, then slowly pulled her collar forward and looked inside her shirt for these supposed weapons. "Uh…"

"You aren't helping," Kyouko snapped, though she did dismiss her spear, so that she didn't scare Homura. "Kiku, what are you going to do about this?"

The brunette pursed her lips, mind working as hard as it could.

"Alright, well…it's obvious at least that she hasn't forgotten _everything_ ," Kiku pointed out. "We should ask her questions and find out exactly how much she remembers."

That said, she marched in front of Homura, dragging Kyouko along with her. She pushed the redhead between them and poked her head out from the side, asking, "Homura, do you recognize who this is?"

The shield user stared hard at Kyouko for several seconds, during which the redhead prayed to every god she could think of.

But Homura's smile faltered. "Um, I'm afraid not," she said apologetically. "Are we related or something?"

Kyouko staggered backwards, putting a hand to her chest. "That hurt more than I expected."

"I'm sorry, I can't really remember much for some reason," Homura fretted, wringing her hands nervously. Was this really how the girl had acted in the past? "I should probably get home. I need to call my parents…wait, what was their number again? Do I even have parents? Oh dear…"

"Wait," Kiku said, stepping between the redhead and the shield user. "Look into my eyes, Homura. Do you remember that one time you lent me a bunch of money?"

The shorter girl blinked. "Um, no?"

"Hmmm," the brunette hummed, nodded sagely. "Actually, maybe we should-"

"We are _not_ leaving Homura like this for the sake of your wallet," Kyouko growled.

"I never said that!"

"You were about to!"

"Well, maybe if you hadn't destroyed the cheaper supermarket-"

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Mami stood up and put a hand on Kiku's shoulder.

"Come on," she said. "We'll go ask Mishki if she knows how to fix this. Kyouko can look after Homura herself."

"Just get her out of here before she blasts my brain too," Kyouko grumbled, turning away from the two of them as they left the apartment, closing the door behind them.

She faced Homura, who had an understandably bewildered expression on her face.

"So, uh…" the redhead was absolutely stumped at having to grasp for conversation with her own girlfriend. "Want to watch a movie or something?"

"Sure…" Homura's gaze fell to the floor and seemed to fix onto something. "How about that one?"

Kyouko followed the girl's gaze and was rather dismayed to see the movie they had just finished not too long ago.

"Yeah, I guess."

It was even worse the second time through.

* * *

 **A/N**

Just something I squeezed out since I had some free time. Kiku's showing up more often than I intended, but...meh.

Speaking of her, I'm thinking about dedicating a brief mini-arc (maybe 3 or 4 chapters) to her and Mami. But only if I know people want to read it, since I understand not everyone reading this has read SM. Let me know!

*Reviewer Responses*

That one guest: unfortunately, Blackbirds is abandoned. I think I mention it on my profile, but either way, there it is.

angel0wonder: I guess this is my home now.

that other guest: I suppose Madoka might have seemed out of character in the first chapter, but I figured becoming a concept would have forced her to change at least a little bit. Just a creative liberty on my part. As for Homura "learning from Kyouko's example," that was mostly a joke, though it has its own grain of truth. There are a lot of things Kyouko could teach Homura. Like how to shred at DDR, for instance.

Thanks for reading!

~Banshee


	3. Kyouko gets punched in the face

Chapter 3: Kyouko gets punched in the face

"Gimme your best," Kyouko said with a gamely look on her face, holding her gloved hands in front of her body and hopping from foot to foot.

Rather than charging towards the redhead, Homura just sighed, letting her own boxing gloves fall to her sides. "Tell me again why we're doing this?"

"You've got to learn how to properly defend yourself!" Kyouko shouted across the boxing ring, raising one fist for emphasis. "You won't always be able to use magic, and shooting the next guy who hits on you is a bit overkill, even if you ask me."

Homura blinked as comprehension dawned upon her. "Is that why you're making me do this? That was one time, Kyouko!"

"Yeah, but he was cute! I know you like cute things, Homura!"

"But I'm not even _straight,_ " the shield user muttered to herself, sinking her toes into the soft surface of the ring.

Kyouko had woken her up that morning, a rarity in itself, to announce that today Homura would begin learning how to fistfight. She had simply stared at the redhead and waited for her to admit that she was joking, but when the admittance was not forthcoming she just pulled the covers back over her head and tried to go back to sleep.

The redhead had to drag her all the way to the gym on her back, and now Homura found herself standing in the ring with her girlfriend in training gear, with numerous passerby giving them curious looks from ground level.

Homura had had no idea where this wild notion even came from, although she had a better idea now, since she did know that Kyouko was very prone to jealousy. But did the redhead seriously expect her to sock every oblivious guy who tried to hit on her? It wasn't even a that big of a deal.

Her thoughts were broken when Kyouko yelled at her again. "Come on, Homura! Don't tell me you're scared!"

Homura pursed her lips at the obvious gibe, not amused. While she certainly wasn't scared, it was no secret that as a magical girl she had always preferred long range combat compared to close. Hand to hand fighting was Kyouko's area of expertise and they both knew it; hell, the redhead had grown up punching people to survive. Homura was not looking forward to getting beaten into a pulp.

Still, it wasn't like she expected Kyouko to let her just walk away from this. If her lover wasn't being incredibly lazy she was usually incredibly stubborn, and this was definitely one of those times. Besides, she was probably right. She couldn't rely on magic for self defense anymore.

Raising her boxing gloves in the air, she began to slowly inch towards the redhead.

Kyouko had given her some pointers on form and whatnot already, but it wasn't helping much; Homura's entire body felt stiff and nervous. She even had on one of those ridiculous looking head guard things, which put an uncomfortable strain on her neck and shoulders.

The redhead shuffled forward to meet her, eyes narrowed and focused. Homura swallowed thickly. Her entire fighting style relied on keeping the opponent at a distance, and striking at close range only when she had the absolute advantage. As petty as it sounded, she didn't enjoy fair fights.

Sending a quick prayer to Madoka, she twisted her fist and tried to catch Kyouko on her right cheekbone, since it was protected by the head guard. She didn't want to injure anyone today.

Turns out it didn't even matter, because Kyouko blocked the jab entirely and countered with her own, so incredibly fast that Homura barely had enough time to register what was happening without the aid of magic. Before she knew it something swift and blunt collided with her face and she went flying, landing on the cushiony surface of the ring completely face down.

There was a smattering of claps from a group of men who had stopped to watch, and Kyouko whistled softly to herself. As strong as her strikes were, Homura was in the end more than human. She wasn't too worried about physically hurting her lover.

Now, Homura's pride…well, that was a different issue entirely.

"Come on, Homura. Don't be a sore loser," Kyouko coaxed, taking off one glove and squatting to pick her partner up, who hung limply downwards, long hair a mess over her face. "You know it didn't hurt that much. I'll teach you how to block-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Homura spun around and smashed her gloved fist into Kyouko's nose, hard enough to break it if the girl's bones weren't naturally enhanced. The redhead yelped and fell backwards, clutching her face with both hands.

Homura stood up and blew the hair out of her face, glaring irritably down at the older girl.

"Don't be a sore loser, Kyouko, you know it didn't hurt that much," Homura snarked, crossing her arms as the redhead staggered to her feet, eyes watering. The spectators outside the ring whooped and laughed, but shut up immediately when Homura shot them her worst death glare, and shuffled off quietly to mind their own business.

"That was a god damn sucker punch!" Kyouko complained loudly, the center of her face now colored an angry red, though luckily it wasn't bleeding. "I never taught you to fight so cheaply!"

"Well, I don't really appreciate getting punched square in the face either!" Homura snapped, balling her fists inside the gloves and putting them against her hips.

"Why you little-!" Kyouko's competitive spirit reared its ugly head as she lunged forward with only one glove on, catching Homura square around the middle and sending them both crashing to the floor. Homura felt the wind fly out of her lungs as the redhead pinned her to the cushioned ground.

"There!" Kyouko grinned savagely as the smaller girl squirmed beneath her. "If you're so great, try to get out of that-"

Homura vanished from beneath her a moment later, reappearing above the redhead and flattening her completely. "Oof!" Kyouko's chin struck the floor as stars flashed behind her eyelids. "H-Hey! We agreed to no magic! You're such a cheater!"

"I don't fight fair. You know that," Homura snarled, pressing her knee into the girl's back and keeping her effectively trapped. That was, until Kyouko chose to break the rules herself.

A wall of red magic blasted out from Kyouko's body, and Homura found herself being thrown clear across the ring by its force, hitting the ropes hard before getting catapulted into the floor again. Everyone else in the gym stared, wondering what the hell was going on as bright flashes of light began to consume the ring, and the two girls inside hollered oaths as they engaged in a savage one-on-one brawl.

* * *

Some hours later, the two of them were both laying on their backs in the ring, breathing heavily. They were both absolutely drenched in the sweat, and the ring itself was in terrible condition, its cushioned floor ripped and dented where one of them had thrown an errant punch. Neither of them had any open wounds, but they were extremely exhausted.

"You…" Kyouko gulped down a huge breath before continuing, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "You fight like a girl."

"Gee," Homura muttered, putting a hand over her eyes. "I wonder why."

"It's because," Kyouko panted, "You didn't listen me."

Homura just rolled her eyes, pulling off her gloves and tossing them aside. "Whatever. I don't think I need to learn how to fistfight, anyhow."

"Then what are you going to do next time someone makes a move on you?" Kyouko asked, turning her head to look at Homura.

"Well…" Homura smiled, reaching out and touching their fingers together. "I guess I'll have to keep you around at all times."

The redhead grinned. "I can live with that."

As their fingers twined together, a section of the roof collapsed and crashed onto the floor, marking the fact that the gym was entirely abandoned. They had completely destroyed the entire place.

"So, uh, how are we going to pay for this?"

"No one has to know, Kyouko. No one has to know."

"…Okay."

* * *

 **This is what came to mind when someone asked me who would win in a fight between Homura and Kyouko, and I took it in the literal sense. Honestly though, Kyouko would probably kick Homura's ass in a fistfight. Just being honest.**

 **I'll probably update again tomorrow. College apps are over and life is good again.**

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **~Banshee**


	4. Blankets and animal documentaries

Smut ahead! You have been warned.

* * *

Chapter 4: Blankets and Animal Documentaries

A chariot's worth of frigid air stampeded through the door when Kyouko kicked it open, effectively chilled to the marrow in her bones. Muttering under her breath and cursing the existence of uncomfortable temperatures in general, she kicked her boots off and left them in the hall, walking into her apartment.

"Oh, welcome back, love," Homura said from her seat on the couch, where she was intently watching something on the television. She had taken to using British habits of affection ever since her discovery of _Harry Potter,_ which she somehow hadn't read until recently. Not that Kyouko had either, but she wasn't much of a reader.

She had been told that it wasn't a very accurate depiction of magic.

"Have you just been s-sitting inside all day?" Kyouko asked, her teeth chattering lightly as she rubbed vigorously at her arms. The cold draft she had let in crept into the living room, ghosting across the floor with long fingers.

Homura shivered gently when it kissed her skin. She had her hair done up in a messy sort of bun, and it bobbed upon her head as she shook beneath the small mountain of blankets she had draped over herself. The time traveler rarely resorted to putting her hair up, and it added a sense of softness to her appearance. Maybe it was the casualness of it that contrasted well with what Kyouko knew about her.

"Why wouldn't I be? It's freezing outside," Homura pointed out, hugging her knees as she continued watching the television.

"Yeah, I noticed," Kyouko grumbled, loosening her scarf and tossing it aside. She shrugged off her coat too, draping it over a chair as she walked towards where Homura was sitting on the couch. "Train was closed down so I had to walk all the way back here."

"That explains why you're late," Homura said, eyes flicking towards the clock. Kyouko tried to sneak one of the blankets away from her, but she apprehended the girl with a smack to her wrist. "You left me feeling lonely."

"That's why I ran all the way here, 'love,'" Kyouko snarked, raising air quotations with one hand as she tried again to snatch a blanket with the other. "Just so I could be warmed by your cold, dead heart."

Homura curled a little deeper behind her blanket fortress, looking at her lover bemusedly. "If I'm so cold hearted, why are you leaning up against me?"

"The rest of you is warm," Kyouko admitted, finally managing to slip beneath the covers and sidle next to Homura, who shuddered when the redhead's frigid skin pressed against hers. Hand snaking beneath the blankets, she took Kyouko's fingers in her own and clucked when she felt their temperature.

"You're freezing," she said, holding the girl's hand more fully, which was clammy to the touch. Kyouko sighed when the shield user's warmth seeped into her veins.

"Exactly," she agreed, taking her hair out of its ponytail and letting it fall free. "So if you don't mind, I'm going to become a heat sponge for a bit."

With that said she turned and buried her nose in the crook of Homura's neck, her free hand seeking its Homura equivalent beneath the blankets. The smaller girl was intoxicatingly warm from sitting under the sheets, and Kyouko felt the ice in her system vaporizing as she closed her eyes and dozed, lips brushing lazily against heated skin. Homura brought one hand up and began slowly raking her fingers through the redhead's hair, using slow, methodical movements, and Kyouko felt her eyes rolling back in her head as pleasant little tingles skipped down her spine. Homura knew all the right spots to scratch her, that was for sure. If she wasn't so tired, she would have purred.

The girl's muffled voice brought her back from the brink of the void, and Kyouko found herself blinking hazily as she asked, "Whuh?"

"I said," Homura repeated patiently, "How was work?"

"Oh," Kyouko said, sitting up and yawning loudly. It had been a few minutes, and felt sufficiently warm, though they still kept their fingers intertwined. "No trouble or anything today. People don't really go clubbing this time of year."

The time traveler just shook her head in disbelief. "I still can't believe you're working as a _bouncer,_ of all things."

"Really?" Kyouko asked. "I think it suits me just fine."

"Well, it does and it doesn't." A small smiled graced Homura's lips. "I can certainly imagine you knocking unruly people out and dumping them in the alley."

Kyouko laughed, her canines flashing. "You should've seen it, Homura. The manager wasn't going to find any way in hell to hire a teenage girl to be a bouncer until I proved him wrong."

"What exactly did you do?"

"I beat his best guy in a fight," Kyouko shrugged.

Homura rolled her eyes. "I should have guessed."

"Hey, it pays well!" the redhead insisted, laying her bare legs across Homura's thighs. "I could even get you and some others in for free if you want."

"I think I'll pass," Homura said blandly, digging around for the remote. "You of all people should know I'm not the clubbing kind of person."

She turned away from the redhead then, lifting the blankets a bit in her continued hunt for the remote.

"I'd love to see you dance, though," Kyouko whispered huskily into Homura's ear, leaning over so she could speak directly into the sensitive flesh.

Homura paused, then turned around, surprising her partner by putting a hand between Kyouko's legs and leaning forward, forcing the redhead to fall back against the couch. Kyouko's eyes went wide when Homura traced the cold edge of the remote across the length of her jaw.

"Do you want me to dance for you right here, right now?" the time traveler asked, her voice hushed and all sorts of illicit. Her eyes seemed to bore straight into Kyouko's, and the older girl could only swallow thickly as she begged her brain to formulate a coherent response.

"Uhh….." she managed after a long, tense moment.

Homura smirked, bopping the redhead's nose with the remote withdrawing back to her original position. "I'm kidding. It's too cold for that sort of thing."

Kyouko just stared at her, thinking somewhere in the uber-analytic part of her mind that Homura hadn't exactly said she _wouldn't_ do it, if the circumstances permitted it.

While she was distracted by that, Homura stood up and sat down between Kyouko's legs, leaning back against the redhead with a soft sigh as she pulled the blankets around both of them. Lifting the remote, she unpaused whatever it was she had been watching.

"What is this, anyway?" Kyouko asked, arms coming up to loop loosely around Homura's stomach.

"Animal documentary," Homura explained briefly, eyes glued to the screen. "It's rather interesting, how all these species learn to survive on the Arctic tundra. I never had a chance to study it extensively in school."

"Hmm," Kyouko hummed, watching the snow rabbit that was hopping around on the screen before it got murdered by a wolf. Not that she could really see, since Homura's bun was in the way. "Fascinating."

"Shh," Homura hushed her, swatting the redhead's knee. "We're watching the animals."

Kyouko snorted. " _You're_ watching the animals. I mean, unless you're implying that you're an animal. Which you can be. When I'm on my game, that is."

Homura's cheek's colored at the girl's implied meaning, but she didn't take the bait. "Shut up, Kyouko. Snow leopards, okay?"

"Sure, sure," she muttered, hugging her girlfriend against her chest, and for the next half hour or so she watched the rest of the documentary.

Well, she tried anyway. She really did! Listening to Oprah Winfrey explain how falcons used their claws to grab land based prey was definitely one of the most intriguing things she had ever heard, but the nape of Homura's neck was just…a tiny…bit more interesting. It was right there in front of her nose, exposed by the silky strands of hair that were done up in an attractively messy fashion, into that bun that bobbed every time Homura nodded at something she found notable. Screw the Arctic tundra. A triumph of nature's design was sitting right between her legs at this very moment.

Homura tried to act like she didn't notice it the first time she felt Kyouko's hand sliding up her thigh. If the redhead was truly intent on tearing her away from her beloved animal documentaries, she was going to have to earn it. So she kept her mouth shut and continued watching, even as Kyouko's nose joined the assault, its soft tip drawing a pencil thin line from her hair line all the way down to the first bump of her spine.

Oprah was saying something about bears now, but Homura found her focus waning when Kyouko began slowly planting kisses across her neck and shoulder, skewing off to the side as her hands wandered ever further. Finally, the redhead gently bit the soft flesh where Homura's shoulder met her neck, and she felt the time traveler's fingers sink into her knee in response. "Kyouko-"

Satisfied to find that she wasn't being completely ignored, Kyouko nipped her way back up to the girl's ear, which she spoke into with a breathy voice.

"I still think I like you better than some documentary," she said, flicking the shield user's ear lobe with her tongue before sucking it gently into her mouth, her breathing and her questing fingers heavy with the promise of much more thorough attention, if Homura would simply give in.

The girl in question gasped beneath Kyouko's ministrations, and an adorable blush swept her face in red. "But don't you want to watch the animals?" she asked meekly, her legs squirming against each other when Kyouko's fingers snaked to the waistband of her shorts.

In a rare moment of verbal wit, Kyouko took Homura's chin in her free hand and said, "Why would I? I've got my own little vixen right here."

She coupled it with the most knowing smirk she could muster, bumping their noses teasingly together, and Homura's surrender was inevitable.

Blushing catastrophically, Homura muttered, "Idiot," before finally leaning up and kissing her, able to feel the heat on her face even through her lips. Kyouko smiled into the kiss, knowing full well that she had won this little battle. Homura was inclined to agree.

The second kiss was more earnest, their lips coming together with a fervent need even Homura had been suppressing for the duration of the day. A hand came up to hold Kyouko's jaw in place, and the redhead earned a pleased sigh from her when their tongues glided against each other, tilting her head to deepen the embrace even further.

Homura was dressed in a comfortable button down shirt for sleeping, and Kyouko's deft fingers began working hurriedly to remove it, a button popping open for every inch she took off of Homura's self control. Soon she had the top half of the shirt hanging open, exposing the time traveler's bare chest to the cool night air.

Kyouko raised her eyebrows between kisses, hands momentarily stalling. "No bra, Homura? You've become a naughty girl."

"Shut up," Homura growled, not at all pleased by the fact that Kyouko's hands had stopped moving. The hand that had been on the redhead's jaw snaked upward to tangle in the girl's hair instead, and Homura used this extra purchase to force an even deeper kiss, managing to elicit a surprised moan from the older girl. Driven by a mixture of impatience and desire, Homura began to turn around in her seat on Kyouko's lap, intent on taking what she wanted if it would not be given to her.

Well aware that Homura was more than capable of dominating her if she wasn't careful, Kyouko hastily tickled her girlfriend beneath the ribcage, hearing a shocked gasp fly out of Homura's throat shortly afterward. The time traveler fell back to her original position, effectively distracted by the unexpected attack.

"Wh-ahaha! Shit, Kyouko! Why did you-" Homura's outraged giggle was interrupted by a surprised moan of her own, when Kyouko abruptly cupped one breast in her palm and gave it a squeeze.

"You can be on top next time," Kyouko promised breathlessly, still winded by how effectively taken by that last kiss she had been. Homura was getting a lot better at that, the kissing thing, which was both good and bad news for her. The girl was gorgeous enough already; couldn't she be just a _little_ bad at sex? Irked by her apparent inferiority, she gave Homura's nipple a gentle tug, earning a quick yelp that restored her pride a little.

Homura squirmed in protest, one hand coming up to cup the one already placed over her breast. "But I… _oh-_ " She found herself interrupted yet again when Kyouko decided to dip beneath the waistband, brushing her fingers against the moist region beyond. "Y-You cheater," the shield user hissed, before moaning again when the redhead spread her wide open with two fingers, stimulating her as much as possible without actual putting anything inside.

"You were saying?" Kyouko whispered mischievously, giving the girl's ear a kiss. "Rude vixens don't get to come."

"I'm not a vixen!" Homura snapped, while simultaneously jerking her hips to try and slip Kyouko's fingers inside, but the redhead was more wily than that. She bit the smaller girl harshly in punishment, making her cry out in a weird mixture of pain and pleasure.

"Whatever you might be, I don't really appreciate being called a cheater," Kyouko murmured, circling Homura's entrance with one arousal coated finger, more than well aware of how ready and wanting her partner was already. The time traveler keened when the redhead brushed a thumb over her clit. "In fact, if I remember correctly, you were the one who never fights fair."

"That is a separate issue entirely," Homura snarled, fingernails raking down Kyouko's thighs and leaving angry red streaks that faded a moment later. "Fine! Call me a vixen or whatever you want. Could you just-"

Kyouko laughed once before slipping two fingers inside, the extent of Homura's wetness making the fit easy. "If you insist, love."

Homura cursed softly when the redhead filled her, and she began to gently move her hips to match the rhythm of Kyouko's fingers, which the older girl bemusedly allowed. Playing absentmindedly with the breast still in her other palm, Kyouko watched in fascination as the girl in front of her began to slowly lose herself, one hand coming down to tap lightly at her clit, both girls working in tandem to bring her ever closer to that edge.

The other hand came up to press hard against Homura's mouth, short breaths and muffled gasps leaking through as Kyouko began working her in earnest. The redhead leaned forward to breathe harshly against the smaller girl's neck as she reached as deep as she possibly could, bringing her other hand up to her mouth before going back to fondling the girl's breast, coupling the added sensation with a gruff exclamation of her partner's name. Homura moaned in response, her tongue flicking out to moisten the palm pressed against her lips.

"Let me," Kyouko grunted, pushing Homura's other hand out of the way, so that she could work the girl's folds and her sweet spot simultaneously. She curled her fingers inside of Homura's dripping wet core, and suddenly she hit the most perfect spot, in a way that made the time traveler throw her head back and gasp:

" _God_ , Kyouko. Right there."

Adequately encouraged, Kyouko kept her movements up, intent on making Homura come as soon as humanly possible. Homura's head was thrown back over the redhead's shoulder, and she turned so that she could moan into the girl's ear the exact way she wanted it, how close she was, how fast that rising pressure in her core was sweeping through her entire body, threatening to topple her already fragile sanity with every delightfully painful bite mark she felt being laid into her skin, and then she was there, falling off that incredible edge-!

Homura mewled Kyouko's name as she came, her wet fingers gripping the redhead's knee, and Kyouko moaned with her, continuing to pump her fingers in and out until her lover came down, extending the length of her orgasm.

Homura sagged against Kyouko's chest with a huge shuddering exhale, her own chest rising and falling rapidly. Her nipple felt raw where Kyouko had almost abused it in her rough ministrations, and her neck was covered in hickeys, but she had hardly noticed in the spur of the moment. Closing her eyes, she carefully directed her internal magic to not heal the gentle bruises, wanting to preserve the places where her lover had marked her for as long as possible.

Turning around, she pushed Kyouko down onto her back, the redhead's cheeks also flushed considerably. "So, I get to be on top now, right?"

Kyouko smiled sheepishly. "Well, I did promise."

"Now you can be _my_ vixen."

"Uh huh…"

The blankets had been all but kicked aside at this point, but neither of them really minded. It wasn't so cold anymore.

Somewhere in the background, Oprah launched into a long spiel about mating season in the Arctic tundra.

* * *

So yeah, I was originally going to just end this as a cute little moment thing, but it obviously ended up going a lot further than that. Also, I've always wanted to see what Homura would look like with her hair done up, but I've never really seen a picture of it, and I lacked the artistic skill to remedy that.

Anyways, thanks for reading!

~Banshee


	5. A Shitty Day

Chapter 5: A Shitty Day

Kyouko didn't remember ever asking Kyubey for the ability to predict the future, but some days it appeared all too much like she had mysteriously gained precognitive abilities.

But why the complicated method of expression? Perhaps Homura was beginning to rub off on her, with all her educational books and the classical music she played all the time, whether it be through a speaker or the piano (which she had to admit didn't sound all too bad), or maybe she was finally beginning to lose her mind. She should have known. All those years of diving into demon nests couldn't have been any good for her brain.

Anyway, to put things more simply, sometimes Kyouko just knew _instinctively_ that she was going to have a catastrophically shitty day.

She woke with a start on one of these days, pulled from the thrashing depths of a rancid nightmare by her own survival instinct, as if her mind had sensed on its own that she was about to be killed by the maliciousness of her own despair. It was a particularly dark dream this time, which hadn't happened for quite a while, since sleeping next to Homura tended to dispel those kinds of problems. When the redhead fell asleep with her lover in her arms she usually dreamt about unicorns and butterflies and butter and…yeah, other stereotypically happy shit like that.

So why the sudden shift in tone?

Flopping one arm out to the side, she found that the other side of the bed was empty, and realized the root of her problem.

Forcing herself into a sitting position, Kyouko yawned tiredly before glancing over at the spot where Homura usually slept. She vaguely remembered something about the time traveler having an early shift today, and current circumstances seemed to support the muddled memory. Grumbling to herself and missing the girl's warmth already, she considered going back to sleep and coming into work late today.

 _The early bird gets the worm._ Homura's stern voice echoed somewhere in the depths of her befuddled brain.

 _What the fuck would I do with a damn worm, though?_ Kyouko thought bitterly, before slithering off the edge of the bed like a slug. She ended up miscalculating the drop and smashing her shoulder on the edge of the bedside table before crashing to the floor with a _thump._

"Ow."

She supposed she ought to take a shower first. Dragging herself up, the redhead shuffled off to the bathroom, tossing her clothes aside and entering the shower, swearing profusely when the water came out ice cold. Homura must have unwittingly used the last of the hot water earlier. The girl did love long showers. The frigid water cascaded down the redhead's back, making her shiver violently.

Stringing together all the cuss words she knew as creatively as she could, she grabbed all the soaps and set out to clean herself as quickly as magically possible. She squirted some brightly colored liquid onto her palm and began violently scrubbing at her hair, only to realize a few moments later that she was shampooing with the body wash.

" _Fuck,_ " she snarled, throwing her head back and trying to wring out the mismatched stuff before it ruined her hair. It left the crimson locks feeling all rubbery and gross anyway, and when she watched the lather drain away she thought for a moment that she saw the shape of a big fat middle finger in the pile of bubbles, like the soap was telling her to go fuck herself.

She began directing the cuss words at the soap as she grabbed the actual shampoo, hell bent on getting out of this damn arctic shower.

Some minutes later she was climbing out of the stall, reaching for a towel to dry herself off. As she was lifting her foot out of the slick tub, she accidentally stubbed her big toe on the steel edge of the stall, sending a lance of pain riding up her entire leg. Kyouko swore and hobbled towards the sink, falling towards the counter and jump barely catching herself before she face smashed the faucet.

"Stupid fucking soap and stupid fucking shower stall…" she hissed, massaging her toe against the fluffy bathmat she was standing on, before grabbing the toothbrush and squirting some paste on it. Shoving the brush into her mouth, she began angrily abusing her teeth.

She stared at her own pissed-off expression in the mirror for a minute or two, thinking internally about how tired she looked, before it dawned on her.

"God damn it," she muttered, pulling the brush out of her mouth and cleaning it off.

Homura's toothbrush.

* * *

Despite the fact that she had woken up about an hour and a half before she was supposed to be at work, somehow Kyouko ended up running behind schedule.

This was due to a variety of factors; first of all, she pulled on one half of her favorite pair of socks, only to spent the next ten minutes searching for the other one, before ultimately giving up and settling for a blander, but complete pair for the day. Then she had trudged downstairs to get some breakfast. There was a note on the counter from Homura, saying that there were leftovers in the fridge if Kyouko wanted them.

"This is why I love you," the redhead smiled softly, taking the leftovers from the fridge and tossing them into the microwave. She set the timer to sixty seconds and leaned against the wall while she waited.

Unfortunately, the drone of the microwave proved to be the ultimate form of stealth ASMR, before she ended up dozing off for a full five minutes and only woke up when the smell of burning food tainted her nostrils.

"Oh, jesus," Kyouko murmured, leaping towards the microwave and pulling out the charred remains of last night's pork rib. " _Shit._ " Looked like it was just cereal for her today.

Ten minutes and one unsatisfactory bowl of Lucky Charms later, Kyouko threw on some clothes and ran out the front door, letting it fall shut behind her. She was already several minutes behind schedule. At this rate the train would leave without her.

Soon enough she was jogging into the train station, bolting down the aisle towards the platform where her train was supposed to be arriving. She sped past tight knots of other commuters in a mad rush, practically vaulting over the spinning bars that led into the terminal. She dashed across the platform and dove forward just as the train was closing its doors, basically falling into the car right before the doors hissed shut behind her.

"Oh! Really, child, mind your manners!" A fat middle aged woman snapped at her, caught off guard by the redhead's sudden entrance.

"Lay off," Kyouko snapped, shouldering her bag and turning to walk to another car.

Something caught behind her though, stopping her right in her tracks.

Turning around slowly in horror, Kyouko felt her stomach clench when she found that the strap of her bag was stuck firmly between the two closed doors.

"You've got to be _fucking kidding me_ ," she growled, turning all the way and attempting to yank the bag free. It held fast, and by now the train was moving at several dozen miles per hour. Kyouko gave the bag another few hefty tugs, pulling as hard as she could without possibly snapping the strap in half, but to no avail. She was tempted to transform on the spot and smash the door to pieces with her spear, but that would probably ensue a rather significant bill, and she didn't need Homura getting pissed at her for another poor financial decision.

Giving up on the bag, she simply stood there awkwardly by the door, tethered there like a dog. She was dismayed to see that the other commuters were stealing amused glances in her direction, including the fat woman from earlier, though her look was more smug than anything else. Kyouko was again seized by the urge to transform and smash the woman's _face_ into pieces. That would probably be worth a lot less money.

Eventually she grew tired of standing there and shrugged the bag off, sitting on the damn floor and leaning against the door, the bag hanging by its caught strap by her head. What a way to start the morning.

Half an hour later the train pulled up at the station, as she yanked the bag free the moment the doors opened, darting out onto the platform before the fat woman could make any smart comments. She left the station and began jogging towards her workplace, praying she wouldn't be late.

So of course she was gloriously late. To make things even more wonderful, her manager was standing by the door when she walked in, both hands on his hips.

"Nice of you to show up," he remarked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"My pleasure," Kyouko panted, out of breath from her long run. She walked past her manager, who was a short guy named Rob, taking her place behind the counter. The place she worked at was a cafe by day, but it turned into a rave club by night. Quite the unique business model, if one were to ask her.

"Next time you're late I'm taking it out of your paycheck," Rob muttered, before disappearing into the back.

 _You're already paying me basically minimum wage,_ Kyoto thought darkly, before grabbing a rag and beginning to wipe down the counter. Maybe she ought to start working at Mami's place instead. Though that would come with its own set of problems, too.

The next few hours passed with little event. Some customers came and other went, same as usual. She worked her shifts and took breaks whenever they were allowed. She had had nothing planned for today, so she had signed up to work the counter for pretty much the entire day.

During one of her shifts, sometime in the afternoon, a self important looking woman walked in with her kid and ordered a drink on the menu that was out of stock.

"Uh, sorry ma'am, but we're out of that right now," Kyouko said, looking up from the monitor on the counter. "Would you like anything else?"

The woman scrunched her nose, and Kyouko knew immediately that this wasn't going to end well. "What do you mean you're out? That doesn't make any sense."

"Out means we're out," Kyouko repeated, probably sounding more deadpan than she intended, but she could care less. Cashiers were human beings too, you know?

The woman's frown deepened. "I want to see your manager."

"What if I told you _I_ was the manager?"

She just got a pissed off glare in response, so Kyouko just sighed and spoke into her headset. "Rob?"

 _"Yeah?"_

 _"_ This customer up front wants to see you."

 _"What did you do this time?_ "

" _Nothing._ She's the one making unreasonable demands." The woman shot her an even angrier glare, and this time her kid followed suit. Kyouko stuck her tongue out at the little booger. "Just please help me with this."

A few minutes later Rob came out to speak with the unruly customer. Kyouko hoped it would end with him turning her away, but of course they ended up giving the woman exactly what she fucking asked for, which made Kyouko look that much worse.

She needed a better job.

Eventually the sun dipped well below the horizon, and the cafe's night life atmosphere began to permeate the general area. The people walking in through the door started looking raunchier and raunchier, until even Kyouko was beginning to feel uncomfortable, because she had a tendency to dress sort of raunchy herself, which meant these other girls were _really_ pushing it. Well, whatever. It wasn't like she didn't understand that.

More and more people began filtering into the night club, and soon the whole place was packed. At some point two idiots erupted into a drunken brawl over something stupid (probably which one had the larger penis, not that it really mattered, since she doubted anyone was going to get them laid anytime soon), and it got to the point that Rob had to ask her to intervene. She leapt over the counter and fought her way to where the guys were clashing, yelling at the top of her lungs.

"Hey! Hey, are you listening to me? Stop fighting!" she shouted, trying to make herself heard over the din. Which was pretty much impossible. She tried to place herself between the two men, but they kept pushing her out of the way, to the extend that it got on her nerves. "Hello? Do you two knuckleheads have ears?" she yelled.

When she was _still_ soundly ignored, the last of her patience collapsed. Darting behind one of the men, kyouko seized him from behind and literally threw him over her shoulder, using her superhuman strength to make it as painful as possible. The guy smashed headfirst into the floor with a _oof!_

Before his friend could react, Kyouko spun and jabbed him in the solar plexus, causing him to double over. Her work done, she grabbed them both and kicked them out of the club, yelling at them not to come back. Then she went back to the bar and sat down, glowering at the floor.

"What are you thinking?" Rob asked her, polishing a glass.

"I'm thinking I need a better job."

"What a thing to say to your boss."

* * *

At long, blessed last, the work day was over, and she was allowed to take off and go the hell home.

She practically passed out on the train back, head lolling from side to side. The train kept bumping on errant tracks while she slept, rattling her head and giving her a nasty bruise by the time she reached home, but not before she very nearly missed her stop. Rousing herself at the last moment, Kyouko practically had to throw herself off the train before it blasted away from the platform.

Stuffing both hands into her pockets, she began the walk home.

On the way she passed by a small store that sold little knick knacks. There were a few products displayed behind the window, and one of them was a book by an author she knew Homura liked. An inkling of an idea spread through her. If her day was going to be absolute crap, she might as well make someone else's.

Walking into the store, she asked for a copy of the book on display outside.

"Oh, that thing? We don't carry that here," the guy behind the counter said.

Kyouko blinked. "The hell you mean you don't carry it? You're displaying it behind your window!"

"Yeah, I know. But I'm telling you we don't have it."

"Now, look here, you…"

They argued back and forth for a few minutes, but the conversation basically ended with him telling her to fuck off, which she ultimately did. But only because she didn't have the energy to german suplex two people in the same night.

Finally, at long last, Kyouko managed to drag herself back to the front door of their apartment. She tested the knob and found it locked, so she fished around in her pocket for the key.

A few moments of intense searching ensued, after which Kyouko fell forward and pressed her forehead against the door, resisting the urge to scream.

She had forgotten the key.

* * *

Homura was sitting on the balcony on the second floor, tired from a long day at work, when she heard what sounded like the front door getting kicked in downstairs.

Frowning, she turned and stared at the door to the bedroom, wondering what the sound was. Could it be a burglar? Reaching into the empty space beside her, she was about to draw a pistol when she sensed her lover's presence.

[ _Kyouko?_ ] she asked, confused.

[ _Hey,_ ] the redhead's disgruntled voice replied. [ _I'm home._ ]

[ _What was that sound? What did you do?_ ]

[ _Oh, that? It's nothing. Just had to kick the door down. I forgot the key, you see._ ]

[… _Bad day?_ ]

[ _Oh, you have_ no _idea._ ]

A moment later Kyouko walked into the room behind Homura, throwing off her coat and entering the balcony with her. She took the seat beside Homura and all but fell into it, her body sagging like a sack of potatoes.

They sat in silence, as Kyouko marinated in how amazingly bad her day had been today. Not a single stroke of luck all day. She began thinking back on her entire life, wondering who's toes she had stepped on to deserve this much misfortune.

Then something shifted beside her, and Homura was leaning into her shoulder, her silky hair tickling the redhead's ear. "So I'm assuming you're day was worse than mine."

"I'm not much of a gambler," Kyouko sighed, "But I'd be willing to bet."

"Mmm," Homura said. Leaning up, she gave Kyouko a brief kiss, though of course it ended up lasting longer than that. After pulling back, she asked, "How about now?"

"Getting better," the redhead murmured, putting a hand behind Homura's neck and trying for another kiss.

Homura indulged her for a moment, before going back to leaning against her. Kyouko closed her eyes and tried to unwind, wanting to lose herself in Homura's scent.

It was silent for a good while, until Homura spoke.

"Kyouko," she said softly.

"Hm?"

Turning so her nose brushed the skin on Kyouko's neck, the time traveler murmured, "I love you."

Kyouko's ears tingled, and she felt goosebumps erupt across the surface of her skin. Homura rarely said those magical words to her, if ever, since she was one of those people who believed in saying it only when it really mattered.

"Thanks," she said, burying her nose in the girl's midnight hair. She loved Homura's hair. Absolutely adored it.

Homura snorted softly. "Is that what you're supposed to say in response to that?"

"What else did you expect? 'No thanks?'"

"Geez. You know what I mean."

Kyouko laughed for the first time that day. "I know." But the words remained unspoken between them, because it was something they knew intimately already, no matter how nice it felt to actually hear them.

No matter how bad things got, Homura could always make Kyouko's day.

* * *

A/N

Written after a particularly bad day, when everything seemed to go wrong. We've all had those days.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure it's been like a month since I posted to this site (just like old times!), though I haven't been writing as much lately. I have, however, been posting the early chapters of an original story on Wattpad (though it's only like two chapters deep right now lmao). I'd appreciate it if you guys decided to check it out. You can find me under the same name.

In terms of this particular story, my next update will be the beginning of the Mami x Kiku arc I've been promising. It's the main reason I even started this one shot series, so it's about time I got around to it. Apologies in advance to those who have not read Silent Melody, as you guys will have no idea what is going on. I don't even know if people are interested in Kiku's story anymore, but I guess I'll just write it and throw it up here, for closure if anything. The arc should be about 3 to 5 chapters in length.

That's all I've got to say for now. Thanks for reading!

~Banshee


	6. Moonlight (1)

**For those reading this who have not yet read all the way through _Silent Melody_ , I would recommend you do that first before reading this, since this arc won't make any sense otherwise. Or you can just skip it entirely.**

* * *

Mami and Kiku Arc (Part One)

Chapter 6: Moonlight

Mami would always remember the day she had died.

When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the sparkle of shattered glass as it cascaded past her nose, the broken shards rattling against the car window pressed against her cheek. She became acutely aware of something digging into the delicate skin of her neck; it was the seatbelt, twisted at a violent angle against her body, the reinforced material half torn by the impact it had just absorbed on her behalf.

It was dark inside the wreckage of the car. That was the first thing her mind processed; that it was dark, unfathomably lightless, the only source of illumination filtering down from the shattered window above her. The car had flipped over more than once in the wake of the crash, and was now balancing on its side, the inside of the car door digging painfully into the blonde's spine. Her right shoulder had suffered a bloody gash, the limb hopelessly tangled in the belt.

The second thing she realized was that she was losing air; the seatbelt was digging so harshly against her that it was cutting off the opening to her windpipe. Gagging instinctually, she reached up with her uninjured hand and clawed desperately at it, scrabbling weakly at the most sizable tear in the material. Her heart palpitated wildly when she found that she lacked the leverage to free herself; her arm was too weak, and the rest of her hurt too much to move.

As she debated this, her body continued to suffocate, and the stark lack of oxygen was starting to affect her thinking. She had no idea how long it had been since her last proper breath, as she had just been unconscious. The already pervasive darkness began creeping in at the edges of her vision, and her head started to feel woozy.

It was only then that a purely animalistic panic seized her, and she began straining savagely against the makeshift chains that bound her, struggling in hopes of snapping the seatbelt through pure tension alone. This ended up doubling the pressure on her throat, and fat black spots began dotting her field of vision as she thrashed, the very beginning of a death rattle emerging from the pit of her stomach-

And then the belt snapped in two, and air - _wondrous_ air - flooded into her system. Mami gasped and sucked in a huge breath of air, the relief hitting her senses like a frigid blast of wind.

But the triumphant inhale quickly deteriorated into an agonized sob; her aggressive movements had nearly launched her off the side of the seat, but her injured arm was still tangled in the remains of the belt, and it wrenched painfully before yanking her back in place.

Gritting her teeth and feeling the beginnings of tears well up in her eyes, she fell back against the door, body going limp, exhausted from the utter effort it had taken to keep herself from dying. Most of her wanted to lay her head back and fall asleep forever, but the adrenaline was still singing through her veins, urging her to fight, to _survive_.

As her free hand reached up and pulled the steel hairpin out of her frayed curls, the strains of a well known song began trickling through her hazy mind, sung in her mother's voice, just the way she had heard it hundreds of times every single day.

 _Oh, loved one  
Where have you gone?  
Been waiting here for  
An open door…_

The hairpin was made entirely out of metal and had one razor sharp edge, making it usable for sawing through the belt. She hadn't wanted to wear it that morning, upset that she wouldn't be looking her best for her first full day with her parents in a while. But she had been forced to settle. And now it was about to save her life.

As she hacked away, her eyes focused on the wound in her shoulder. Blood was leaking slowly from a deep cut in the muscle, beading together like her body was weeping along with her. For a moment there was only the sound of metal scraping against belt, and the soft squeaks of Mami trying to hold back her cries of pain, as if afraid that someone would hear her.

 _Forever waiting  
For a day where we won't cry  
Forever waiting  
For a day with no good byes…_

Pain was merely relative, and her mother's voice helped her fight through it. At last the belt snapped in half again, and she groaned when her ruined arm flopped against her bruised side. Clutching her shoulder, the blonde tried her best not to let her consciousness slip away again. That would mean death.

Phone. She needed her phone. Wriggling her fingers against her pocket, she fished the device into her palm and held it in front of her. The screen was cracked and dented beyond repair, and through one of the holes in the glasswork she could even see the machine's innards. Even her phone had been gutted by the crash.

Regardless, her first priority was spacial awareness. She needed more light to reorient herself. Then she would think about trying to get out of the car.

Fiddling with the different features of the phone, she tried to turn on its built in flashlight. Luckily it still worked, and a bright beam of light flooded the inside of the car, illuminating what had once been hidden from her.

What she saw right before her would always be the greatest horror she had ever witnessed.

Her dead father's eyes, staring directly into hers, like mournful windows to the soul. The lids were drooping and half closed, the muscles behind them no longer alive or functional. A thin trickle of blood was marring his unruly hair, matting the strands of his beard and cutting a defining line down the middle of his face. His entire body was slumped over the middle of the car, his position suggesting that he had moved to shield Mami with his own body in the moments leading up to the crash, but even after many years the blonde would never know if it even mattered, if such a stupidly protective instinct had been what killed her dad, or if he would have died anyway, inevitably.

For some inexplicable reason, she didn't scream, or even shirk away from the face of her father's corpse. Instead she gazed almost forlornly at it, considering that perhaps she would even stroke it, to tell it that dad it was okay, she was fine, and he was going to be fine too. They were going to leave this wreckage and go get that cake they had agreed on. Or maybe a trip to the hospital first, but at least they would be together…

It was only when her eyes shifted to the side, and saw what remained of her mother's body, that she realized the true gravity of the situation.

She didn't get a very good look, and to this day Mami could not really remember what exactly she had seen at that moment; her mind had naturally repressed it. All she could recall was an ugly mess of red and black, guts and brain matter sprayed across the shattered windshield, keeping the sun from illuminating a broken and ruined body. It made her own shoulder look like child's play.

She wrenched away from the front of her car, one hand slapped over her mouth to repulse the rising urge to vomit. Shuffling as far as humanly possible away from the rotting bodies, which wasn't very far at all, she crushed her face against the back of the seat and began sobbing violently, because she was scared, so fucking _scared._ In hindsight, she should have known. Her first thought should have been that there were other people in the car with her.

But she hadn't been thinking straight. Now the stench of dead flesh was all too real in the cramped wreckage. The realization crushed her lungs in a fiery panic, and she began to scream as loudly as she could, finally succumbing to rationale and praying someone, _anyone_ , would hear her and come to help, please help, God, my parents are dead!

She screamed until her damaged throat gave out. She beat her fists against the window by her ear and begged for freedom. She prayed to God, then threatened him, then began spewing vitriol at his expense, cursing him, hating him for doing this to her.

But no matter how loudly she yelled, no one came. No one heard. No one listened.

In that moment, she was truly alone.

Several minutes later, her body spent, Mami lay slumped against the door again with her eyes trained on the broken window a few feet above her. To her it looked like the only remaining portal to the sky, but it was too far for her to reach.

There was the sound of tinkling glass, and strangely enough relief blossomed in Mami's chest. Maybe the rest of the car would collapse around her now. Surely its structural integrity had been severely compromised. If a heavy shard of glass fell toward her throat now, she would not have the energy to dodge it, nor the desire. In that moment, death would have been sweet. At least she would get to see her parents again.

Closing her eyes, she braced herself for the fatal dagger she had conjured up in her imagination. But it was not forthcoming.

Instead a small shadow fell over her eyes, and when she opened them she saw the figure of a lithe looking animal peering down at her.

[ _Hello, friend,_ ] it said, seeming to murmur directly into her mind. [ _How are you doing today?_ ]

The question was so strange, so nonsensical, that she couldn't find it within herself to muster a response, even if she instinctually knew somehow that she merely had to think a reply. Instead she raised her injured arm and tried to reach the alien silhouette, thinking that when something stood between her and the sun, everything looked black.

[ _I can save you, you know,_ ] the creature continued, swishing its voluminous tail. [ _Any wish, anything you could possibly desire, for the small cost of your eternal servitude. You may defeat any enemy. Conquer any fear. All you must do…is make a contract._ ]

In the bleariness of her current state, Mami did not question the specifics of her situation. All she knew was that she was about to die, and this alien was her only way out. The world began to recede around her, until it was only them, the girl and the Incubator, Eve and the treacherous snake from the garden. She forgot even about the two dead bodies not two feet from her.

All she wanted was to escape this feeling. This ugly fear that terrified and immobilized her. She hated it. She had never felt this sort of fear before. The kind of fear that was so great it took her out of her own body. She never wanted to feel it ever again. She never wanted to feel this _vulnerable_ again. Her mind couldn't handle it. Her body would not allow it.

Stretching her fingers out towards her supposed savior, she rasped out,

"Please…I don't want to die. I don't want to be scared anymore. I…"

[ _Very well,_ ] Kyubey said smugly, raising its ears. [ _Your wish has surpassed entropy.]_

 _[Now rise, Mami Tomoe._ ]

As the little shards of glass pulled themselves magically out of her body, as her wounds miraculously healed themselves and the pain seemed to melt blissfully away, as she exploded outward from the hollow shell of the car in a brilliant display of golden light, Mami never forgot that she left something behind in that car wreck, all those years ago.

It was the memory of the terrified little girl, one broken by fear, betrayed by her own vulnerability.

Her weakness slain, killed in a smoldering heap of flaming steel.

* * *

"Mami!"

When Mami woke up, she was drenched in sweat.

The first thing she noticed was that a car alarm was going off somewhere in the street far below; the strident horn was blaring angrily first thing in the morning, probably set off by a stupid stray cat or some robber who lacked the guts to break a window. For a moment the sound seized her entire body, and she could not move, mind grinding to a standstill at the trigger noise.

Then there was the sound of a window opening somewhere across the street, and a grumbled complaint. Soon a button was pressed, and the car was silenced.

The sudden silence that followed was equally jarring, and Mami found herself breathing heavily for several moments, her bangs loose and bedraggled with perspiration. Based on how bright it was outside, it must be early morning; the errant alarm had pulled her out of sleep early.

"Mami?"

Turning her head, the blonde finally noticed her girlfriend sitting on the edge of the bed beside her, staring at her with worry stitched into her features.

"Hey, are you alright? You were fidgeting and crying out in your sleep…did you have a nightmare?"

Reaching out, Kiku slipped her fingers against her partner's cheek, trying to comfort her, but the blonde shuddered at the contact. A frown cut into the brunette's face, but she did not pull away. "Mami, please talk to me. What's wrong? Did something happen?"

"I…" Mami rasped, but paused when her voice came out sounding warped. She cleared her throat, which felt strangely constricted, before speaking again. "I'm fine, Kiku."

The other girl's eyebrows crunched together. "Are you sure? You were really thrashing around…you even woke me up. Do you think-"

"I'm fine," Mami insisted, putting a hand on Kiku's wrist and pushing her hand away. The brunette retracted it reluctantly, not entirely convinced. "Just a bad dream, is all. Nothing important. I must have eaten something wrong last night."

Kiku bit her lip. "Really?"

"Really," the blonde repeated, trying for what she hoped looked like a winning smile. Besides, she wasn't really lying. Already she could feel the remnants of her nightmare fading to the background, leaving only a bad taste in her mouth.

Kiku leaned back a little, convinced for now. "Okay," she sighed, twirling a strand of chocolate brown hair with a finger. Then her face brightened up again. "Still, we're up a lot earlier than usual today, aren't we?"

"Yes," Mami agreed, turning to gaze out at the sleepy apartment street outside. The sun was barely above the horizon. "Usually you're up so late we barely make it in time to open the store."

Kiku blushed at the gibe. "Jeez, you don't have to mention that." She flounced in protest on the bed, making it bounce up and down. Lips curving up in a smile, she leaned into Mami's personal space and said, "So, um, what do you think we should do with this extra time?"

Mami felt her arteries dilating when Kiku came closer, and her heart began to beat faster, but for all the wrong reasons. Things like this always caught her off balance; she didn't like it. Sometimes the brunette's unpredictability was a bit much to handle.

"I think…" she said in a hushed voice, putting gentle fingers to her partner's chin, "That we should go open the restaurant."

With that she lightly pushed Kiku's face away from hers, slipping off the edge of the bed and disappearing into the bathroom.

The illusionist pouted, jumping off the bed herself and following. " _Tease._ "

Not really. Mami didn't consider herself much of a tease.

Just a complete and utter coward.

* * *

The rest of the day seemed to pass according to business as usual. They shared breakfast together, though today it was a bit more wordless than Kiku was accustomed to, as Mami was caught up in reviewing the contents of her nightmare.

This wasn't the first time the dream had plagued the blonde. She had had it many times before, sometimes many times in quick succession, sometimes with whole months in between. This instance belonged to the latter example; in fact, she hadn't had that particular dream about her contracting for nearly a year, so it bothered her that it was only resurfacing now. It felt like a bad omen.

 _It was probably that car alarm,_ she thought to herself, chewing absently on a banana. She didn't really like those. They brought up bad memories, and was probably what brought about the dreams.

Still, acknowledging that she had a trigger didn't comfort her either.

"What are you thinking about?"

Mami looked up to find Kiku gazing back at her, chin cupped in both hands, elbows leaning against the edge of the table. The blonde pursed her lips at the other girl's poor table manners, but didn't say anything. She was more distracted by the bemused look Kiku was giving her, one filled with adoration, though Mami didn't feel like she had done anything to deserve it.

"Nothing in particular," she lied, refocusing on her banana.

"Really? I always get the sense that you think really deeply."

Mami frowned. "What makes you think that?"

Kiku smiled happily, her eyes closing into two little curves of mirth. "I dunno. I just get that sort of impression from you."

Mami tried to match the vibrancy of that smile, but found that she couldn't, and ended up looking at her empty banana peel instead. She couldn't open up her expressions so easily like that. It felt too awkward.

About an hour later they left their apartment and made their way to the cafe, deciding to take it slow by walking. Kiku absolutely insisted that they walk the entire way while holding hands, since it was apparently something 'normal couples' did, and Mami had reluctantly obliged her. What followed was a solid thirty minutes of trying not to descend into an uncomfortable panic, and by the time they reached the front doors of the restaurant her fingers felt stiff and underused.

She let go of Kiku's hand to unlock the doors, though she could have used her other arm. The brunette pouted a bit in disappointment, but otherwise said nothing.

They spent the next few minutes wordlessly getting ready for another day of business. After everything was prepared the two of them sat quietly behind the counter, waiting for the customers to come in.

Soon enough the regular morning visitors began trickling in, and after their drinks had been served Kiku sat complacently and watched them, a contented look on her face.

Mami tried to watch her discreetly from the corner of her eye. She had matured a bit in the last year of so, and she wasn't going to deny to herself that she had run into a sort of roadblock when it came to her relationship with Kiku. It wasn't the emotional part of their relationship that was difficult; it was the shows of intimacy that the brunette was so fond of.

It wasn't like Kiku felt her up in public or anything like that. But in their quiet, private moments, when the brunette would lean lovingly against her and reach over to play with the blonde's hair, Mami's body would naturally seize up. It wasn't anything intentional. Her body would just do it, lock itself like a jewelry box touched by the wrong hand, and before she knew it Kiku was pulling away from her, a painfully apologetic look on her face.

Mami always wanted to tell the girl she had nothing to be sorry about, since it was her own problem. But she could never bring herself to.

It was going to happen again the next time, after all.

Mami didn't really know what her issue was. She knew that she was reserved by nature, but that didn't explain why she recoiled from physical contact, and from Kiku, of all people. Her…her _girlfriend._ The phrase felt awkward on her mental tongue, but that was what they were now, right? She wasn't so sure on that either. It was true that she had accepted the girl's confession, but Mami had never been in a serious relationship before. And certainly not with a beautiful magical girl who she already knew was head over heels for her.

She could still remember that moment, frozen in time just like that horrible time she had spent inside the burning car. Sitting on the couch waiting to count down to the beginning of a new year, when Kiku turned to face her and took the blonde's face in her hands.

"I don't want to feel regret anymore," the girl had murmured, before kissing her.

A second later their friends had erupted in cheers when the counter hit zero, only to go completely silent immediately afterwards once they realized what was happening.

Every eye had been on Mami. She had felt almost crushed beneath the pressure of all those magical gazes. Her entire body had screamed at her to escape from the situation, that she was too _exposed,_ that the easiest thing to do would be to gently refuse Kiku's offer.

The logic felt sound in her mind. Homura would have been proud.

So she didn't understand why she did what she did next.

Taking the girl's hands in her own, she had whispered, "Okay," before pressing her own lips to Kiku's knuckles.

It was just one word, but it was enough to seal her fate.

Now, precisely two weeks after that day, Mami still didn't know what had come over her.

It was completely ridiculous no matter what angle she took it from. She had agreed long ago to respect Kiku's autonomy. _Fine_. That was perfectly logical. She had also acknowledged that the brunette would begin pursuing her for real. Also fine. Kiku was free to do as she well pleased. But _never_ had Mami ever agreed to one day accept the girl's feelings, and in truth she had suspected that she would never be able to bring herself to do so.

Which was why it made utterly no sense, the fact that they were now _dating._

Though Mami didn't really know if 'dating' was an accurate descriptor. They hadn't gone out on a single 'date' since then, and the few attempts at intimacy Kiku had advanced mostly failed, and their conversations and interactions remained mostly unaffected. It felt…it almost felt like that day had never happened. Like they were still friends, and just that.

Mami wondered if her mind was naturally struggling to maintain the status quo, refusing to accept this unexpected turn of events, pulling out all the stops necessary to convince herself that absolutely nothing had changed.

"Hey, Mami." Kiku's sweet voice broke through her mental barriers. "What does this word say?"

Leaning over, the brunette pointed out a particular arrangement of kanji in the book she was reading. Mami knew Kiku wasn't really much of a reader, but her friendship with Homura had led to the time traveler lending out some books, and the brunette was at least making an effort to digest them. She was beautifully earnest like that.

"That says 'season unending,'" Mami translated, pointing out the specific symbols that proved her point. "You have to read it a little differently."

"Oh," Kiku murmured, before going back to reading, absentmindedly chewing her hair between her lips.

The blonde watched her, thinking that this was so much easier. Helping Kiku when she was in need of it, being the responsible one, acting the role of motherly figure. It was so much simpler this way. Why couldn't things stay like that forever?

"Say, have you ever read this book before?" Kiku suddenly asked, pressing close to Mami to show her the cover.

The blonde felt her fingers curl in on themselves. It was happening again. Kiku was breaking the mold they had lived so comfortably within for so long. The table was being upturned, and she wasn't strong enough to flip it back the way she liked it.

But the most frustrating part of it all was that even she knew it didn't make _sense_ ; it was illogical for her to shirk away from her best friend, nonsensical for her to fear opening herself up to that sort of vulnerable intimacy. Was it that Mami simply couldn't love Kiku the way Kiku loved her? She didn't think that was the case. Strangely she was convinced that wasn't the problem.

"Um, no, I don't think so," she murmured, though a moment later she realized she had.

"Hmm. Well, it's pretty good so far. You can have it after I'm done," Kiku promised, before diving back into the story.

Mami pressed her palms into her eyes. "Sure."

 _Oh, loved one  
Where have you gone?  
Been waiting here…_

Strange. She had dreamed it that morning.

But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't recall the lyrics to her mother's song.

* * *

Kiku wasn't an idiot.

She was walking alone down a cold wintry road, keeping her hands buried inside the length of her coat. It was still the middle of January, and winter had Mitakihara in its icy grip. Usually she wouldn't have minded the cold, but when she was by herself like this, she minded it a little bit more.

They had had plans with Homura and Kyouko later that night, since they hadn't all gotten together in a while, but Mami had suggested that Kiku head over first. The idea had surprised the brunette a little, as well as hurt her, because she knew the blonde was under some sort of discomfort.

She kicked a frozen pebble in passing. Kiku wasn't an idiot. She was well aware of her surroundings. She knew that ever since her confession on New Year's day, Mami had yet to adjust herself to the idea of being in a romantic relationship. Kiku had expected this of course, at least to some degree, but not to this magnitude. There were some days where she felt like they had been happier when they were just friends.

She had done her best to ease the transition. Just fleeting touches at first, testing the waters, knowing that Mami had to take things at her own pace. But there were times when she got impatient too; she had been waiting literal years, after all, for a chance to love Mami in every way she could. So she was understandably frustrated with their lack of progress these last couple weeks.

Was she pushing too hard? She didn't think so. It wasn't like she was trying to coerce Mami into something sexual. They hadn't even kissed since New Year's day. The thought made Kiku touch her lips, thinking about how wonderful the blonde's mouth had felt against her own, so _right_ , like she had been searching for it her whole life.

She had bared her entire heart and soul in that moment, hoping it would reach Mami.

But perhaps that was what scared the girl?

* * *

When Kiku arrived on Homura's doorstep, she heard faint piano music floating from behind the door.

Reaching beneath the door mat, she plucked out the key and shoved it into its lock, letting herself inside. She shivered in relief as she finally managed to escape from the cold, letting the door fall shut behind her as she entered the apartment.

Besides the ephemeral music, the rest of the building stood still and empty. The piano itself was soft and forlorn, mournful even, clean notes swimming through the building's atmosphere like fireflies. Kiku found herself closing her eyes and absorbing it as she walked in, marveling at how it sounded so simultaneously joyous and sad, like the accepted parting of something loved and adored.

When she finally entered the living room, she saw Homura sitting before the keys.

The time traveler was swaying gently from side to side, her graceful fingers dancing lightly across the pale ivory. That was something Kiku had always admired about Homura: her grace. Grace in thought, grace in movement. Grace in expression.

Turning her head, she saw Kyouko sleeping soundly on the couch, a relaxed look on her face. Apparently she had been lulled to sleep by the music. Looking back at Homura, she took in the way the girl played, trying to figure out where she had heard this particular song before. It sounded cold, almost lonely, and it reminded her of nights where she stood alone beneath the light of the moon.

[ _Don't just stand there. Take a seat somewhere,_ ] Homura thought to her, not for a moment breaking her tempo.

Smiling softly, Kiku pulled up a chair beside the piano bench and sat down, content to listen to the girl play. She hadn't really heard Homura's music since she first began relearning the instrument. The shield user's progress was markedly astounding.

[ _This is a beautiful song,_ ] she thought to her friend, peeking at the sheet music but failing to comprehend it. [ _And you've improved so much!_ ]

A small smile tinged Homura's expression, and a single strand of hair fell across her face as she moved. [ _Kyouko practically ordered me to play it for her. Helps her take her naps, apparently. She's lucky I love her._ ]

Kiku giggled silently. [ _I'm sure it's her way to saying she loves your music._ ]

[ _I know. But I wish she'd just say it rather than going to sleep._ ]

A few measures passed before either of them spoke again.

[ _I'm actually cheating a little,_ ] Homura admitted, before executing a perfect arpeggio. [ _A little time magic to help with the tempo. It makes things easier._ ]

[ _Who cares?_ ] Kiku raised a hand flippantly. [ _It sounds great. That's all that matters, right?_ ]

Homura closed her eyes. [ _I don't know. Sometimes the music doesn't feel real to me when I cheat._ ]

Kiku blinked. For some reason that statement struck her. [ _I feel like I've heard this song somewhere before._ ]

[ _I wouldn't be surprised. It's rather famous._ ]

[ _What is it called?_ ]

Homura gestured towards her sheet music between hand transitions, drawing Kiku's eyes to the title at the top. [ _It's a French piece by Claude Debussy, called 'Clair de Lune.' It means 'Light of the Moon,' or perhaps just 'Moonlight,' if you aren't feeling particularly poetic._ ]

Kiku knew she shouldn't be particularly impressed, especially if this was common knowledge, as Homura so claimed. It was just yet another classical song everyone had heard but never knew the title of. But still, she couldn't help closing her eyes as well as listening through the rest of the song in silence, captivated by how it made her feel. It was such a slow song, imbued with such an impossibly gentle melody that when Homura did speed up a little, it felt more drastic than it normally would have.

For some reason it made her feel…complacent. Like she had failed to reach for something, but the notes were telling her it was okay, that it was alright that she had failed.

[ _Not really,_ ] Homura said softly. [ _I don't think that's what the song means, personally._ ]

Kiku sure hoped so.

* * *

She shot Mami a text some time later, arranging for them to meet each other halfway before heading off to eat together. The blonde's reply was polite and scripted, business as usual, but it still tugged downward at the corners of Kiku's mouth. She thought her girlfriend could afford to be more expressive.

The three of the left Homura's apartment as a group, dressed in bundled winter garb. It wasn't snowing anymore, and the roads were mostly clean, but the air still had teeth. Kiku shivered as the wind cut into her, wishing that she had a warm hand to hold onto. Though even if Mami had been there at that very moment, she doubted the blonde would have been comfortable with the idea.

The couple she was walking with, meanwhile, seemed to served as the exact foil to herself. They were walking close by each other, playing absentmindedly with each other's fingers as they walked, not even looking at what they were doing, like it was just something natural that happened whenever they happened to be near each other. They were making idle talk by themselves, and though Kiku had grown quickly accustomed to Kyouko's wolfish grin, the bemused smile on Homura's face was something she didn't get to see that often.

The sight made her heart swell with both happiness and yearning. So this was what "third wheeling" felt like.

Her musings were interrupted when Kyouko suddenly addressed her, and a moment had to pass before Kiku realized she was being spoken to.

"So how's it been going with the old musket head?" the redhead asked her, wriggling her eyebrows suggestively. Homura just rolled her eyes behind them.

Kiku, despite her current issues with a certain 'musket head,' found herself snorting at the comment. Kyouko had that affect on people. "It's going great, Kyouko."

"I haven't seen either of you since, you know, you actually grew some balls and went for it." Now it was Kiku's turn to roll her eyes. "So how about it? Have you popped the cherry yet?"

As Kiku flushed at the openness of the inquiry, Homura angrily jabbed Kyouko in the ribs, hard enough to make the redhead yelp out loud. "Kyouko! You know it's rude to ask something like that out of the blue!"

"Hey, no fair!" Kyouko protested, rubbing her side gingerly. "She asked me the same thing!"

"At least she had the decency to ask through telepathy."

Before Kiku could ask how the heck Homura was even aware of that, the time traveler sighed and sent her an apologetic look. "Ignore her, Kiku You can share as much with us as you want. Besides, it's only been two weeks. We aren't expecting anything drastic."

 _She's right,_ the brunette thought to herself, watching her shoes step in front of each other on the sidewalk. _It's only been two weeks._ She couldn't expect a naturally reserved Mami to open up to her so quickly. They had both been comfortable as best friends. Moving beyond that would be jarring for anybody. She was just more ready than her partner because she had been in love for so long. It definitely made sense.

Yeah, that was probably it.

"We're eating meat, right? I want, like, five ribs," Kyouko pestered Homura, who just sighed affectionately and took the girl's hand.

"Sure thing, love."

Kiku smiled to herself.

They were so cute.

* * *

Mami met them at a spot between their two apartments, at a crossroads by the sea. There was a number of street side restaurants in this area, and since Kyouko had absolutely _insisted_ that they all go out for some Korean barbecue, they had agreed unanimously on this location.

The blonde was standing on the other side of the street when Kiku spotted her. She turned and saw them, giving up a brief wave before beginning to cross the street. There was a frozen sort of look on Mami's face that Kiku could make out when she got closer. The brunette turned away and pretended to be chatting with Homura, not wanting to see something so ugly on someone so beautiful.

She was about to strike up a meaningless conversation when it happened.

The first thing she saw was Homura's eyes going wide, the pupils dilating until there were just two violet pinpricks. The second thing she felt was the sound of screeching tires, shrieking across the boardwalk like the wail of a banshee.

The third thing was a brilliant streak of yellow, as a nanosecond later a golden ribbon lashed outward and tied itself around the stop sign by Kiku's elbow, going taught immediately afterward.

By the time Kiku whipped herself around, heart hammering in her chest, it was already over.

Mami was laying on her side on the road, just a few feet away from the sidewalk where they were standing. The brunette's eyes frantically scanned her body, and her chest exploded with relief when she spotted no apparent injuries. The girl was shaken, certainly, but not hurt.

It was the vehicles in front of her that were in deeper trouble.

There were two cars, each wedged firmly against each other so that the crumpled sheet metal of their hoods were entertained like the roots of a mechanical tree. Smoke was rising from beneath the chassis of one of the vehicles, and the other had a shattered windshield, the driver inside groaning and trying to get a grasp on his surroundings.

It was a standard car crash, taken straight out of a movie.

The next thing Kiku became aware of was the acute wail of a siren, as both of the car's alarms began blaring in unison.

Her feet were moving before her mind was, and before she knew it Kiku was kneeling down behind Mami, arms coming down to help lift the girl up. The normally composed blonde was shivering all over, and initially Kiku attributed this to the cold. But Mami didn't get cold that easily.

In front of them, both drivers in the crash were pulling themselves out of their respective vehicles and staggering away from the wreckage. It didn't appear that either of them had been severely injured. Several passerby were now gathered around the crash site, either helping the victims to safety or gazing on curiously.

"Hey, young lady. Are you alright?" Someone called from the sidewalk.

"I'm fine," Mami murmured, not even looking up or blinking. Her gaze seemed to be far off in another land, and there was no ferry to take Kiku to its shores. She couldn't reach her loved one.

"Mami," Kiku said sternly, gently slapping the girl's cheeks. "Mami, look at me. Are you okay?"

Suddenly there were rigid fingers coiling into the fabric of Kiku's jacket, and Mami was holding her in a death grip, eyes drawn back and hollow.

"Take me away from here, please," Mami rasped, still shivering. "The sound, I can't…"

Scooping the blonde up in her arms, Kiku stood up and began jogging away from the wreckage, trying to put as much distance between them as possible.

"Is she hurt anywhere?" Homura demanded when they passed each other.

"No," Kiku said, transferring Mami to a piggyback hold. "But I think she's in shock. Come on. Let's get out of here."

Homura nodded and began to follow. Kyouko ran over and grabbed Mami's bag where she had dropped it, then began to pursue them, and the four girls disappeared around the next corner.

* * *

They ended up having to eat at a place nearly two miles away, mostly because Kiku didn't want to stop running until she could barely hear the car alarms anymore. She didn't know why, but they were somehow bothering Mami, and she wouldn't allow that. Not on her watch. Besides, it wasn't that strenuous. Their bodies had endured worse.

Half an hour later they were sitting outside at some obscure Korean barbecue place, the four of them seated around a low steel table with a built in grill in the middle. Mami was occupying a chair beside Kiku, and had since regained consciousness, but that didn't stop the illusionist from casting her a worried glance ever five seconds. Magical girls didn't just collapse for no reason; especially Mami, who had fought hordes of demons and rabid puella magi without batting an eye. It didn't make any sense.

"How are you feeling, Mami?" Homura asked from across the table.

The blonde had been spacing out until then, her eyes staring blankly at the burning grill, but she blinked awake at her mention. "Oh…I'm alright," she sighed, putting a hand to her forehead. "I think I just slept badly last night. I've been tired since this morning…"

"Man, but you should've seen how close that car came to shaving you clean in half," Kyouko noted, waving her chopsticks in the air for emphasis. "Another inch and we'd have a lot of explaining to do for the cops. I guess your reflexes are better than I thought!"

"Your jokes are always so crude," Homura muttered, picking at the side dishes that had been laid out across the table.

Kyouko snorted and elbowed her lover. "I know you adore my razor sharp wit."

The time traveler seemed to smile involuntarily. "Sometimes."

"But anyways, if you really didn't want to have KBBQ, you could have just said something," Kyouko joked again. Homura shot Kiku an exasperated look.

"Ah…right…" Mami said, smiling weakly at the gibe. It was obvious to Kiku that the blonde wasn't very comfortable talking about the incident, for whatever reason.

"So what are we getting?" the brunette interrupted, hoping to steer the conversation away from her girlfriend. She had already extracted promises from the other couple, Kyouko especially, that they wouldn't interrogate Mami on the current status of their relationship, since that would definitely lead to no end of awkwardness.

Her friends moved to grab their own menus, and the rest of the meal passed in relative normalcy. While this was what Kiku had wanted, she was surprised that her friends could put the incident behind them so easily. Or maybe she was the strange one? Mami was a magical girl, after all. Even if those cars had actually hit her there probably wouldn't have been much to worry about.

Was she the only one who felt profoundly that something was wrong? Something off about Mami's posture, her tone, the flicker in the eyes. Maybe it was because Kiku spent so much time watching the blonde, but she felt…different. Just slightly off her mark.

When they had been fleeing the crash site, she had been carrying Mami on her back, silently listening to the girl's breathing. But in between breaths the blonde had sometimes murmured words, and after a while Kiku realized they were always the same ones, repeated over and over again, like the pendulum on a clock.

 _Forever waiting…forever waiting…_

For what?

About halfway through the meal Kiku decided she needed to say something. The meat was out and cooking by now, and Kyouko was playfully trying to feed Homura, who was blushing and trying to fend off the food being shoved towards her. Reaching beneath the table, Kiku took Mami's hand and entered her mind.

[ _You seemed kind of shaken back there. Did something happen?_ ]

While telepathy was fairly standard across all magical girls, there was a certain flavor to everyone's individual mental undertones. Mami's mind was Kiku's favorite to taste; it was rich and sweet, but underlaid with something heavier, something she couldn't quite identify.

[ _Yes…I'm fine,_ ] Mami assured her, chewing slowly on a piece of meat. [ _Like I said, I'm just a bit tired today. You don't have to worry._ ]

Kiku bit her lip. Mami sounded earnest, but she still had the sneaking suspicion that the blonde was lying. She didn't want to offend her by suggesting that, though. So she just squeezed her partner's hand and said,

[ _Okay. But if you need anything, I'm always here._ ]

Mami nodded in acceptance, but she didn't squeeze back. Instead Kiku's hand lay against loose fingers, like Mami had given up on keeping her grip on this world, instead choosing to drift off to the same far off land Kiku could never reach.

In front of them, before a giggling Homura and Kyouko, a small pile of ashes crumbled to dust beneath the webbing of the grill.

The scent of meat, laced with the aroma of smoldering flames.

* * *

Finally writing out the closing arc of this pairing. It's been a long time coming, but hopefully there are people still interested enough to follow this arc. I'll finish posting the chapters regardless.

This arc should be three, _maybe_ four chapters long.

As a side note, Mami's song is meant to be sung along with the melody of _Clair de Lune_. Just a little cookie if you were wondering.

Thanks for reading!

~Banshee


	7. Season Unending (2)

Mami and Kiku Arc (Part Two)

Chapter 7: Season Unending

After they finished eating, though most of it was spent sitting around and waiting for Kyouko to have her fill, the four of them went their separate ways.

Homura and Kyouko waved goodbye before disappearing on their way home, and Mami began making her way back to her own apartment, Kiku close behind her. They walked in silence for a good while, not saying anything, but the blonde wasn't sure if the silence was comfortable or not. She could't really tell anymore.

Her mind kept replaying that moment over and over again, the three split seconds before the two cars had collided right in front of her. Her nerves were still frayed from the incident; any sharp or sudden sounds, a can hitting the ground, a startled bird taking off into flight, made her flinch and ball her fists inside the pockets of her coat. She was nervous, edgy, like she was alone and being followed. The smell of burning tires was in her nostrils. The sobs of car alarms were in her ears.

It didn't make any sense. Why was it all coming back now? Mami knew she had never really gotten over the trauma from her contracting. Not all the way. But she had learned to cope with it over the years, and after all this time she had assumed that given another half decade she would leave it behind her.

But now nightmares plagued her sleep, and her mind felt more unstable than ever.

"The sea looks so pretty at night, doesn't it?" Kiku breathed, breaking Mami's concentration.

Blinking, the blonde turned and looked at the ocean. The moon was nearly full above the water, casting a white road unto the waves that seemed to lead all the way past heaven. But Mami knew if she stepped onto that path, her feet would fall through and she would plunge into the cold abyss of the ocean; it was just an illusion. There was no escape from the shore.

"Gosh, I just love weather like this," Kiku said, raising her arms and doing a little spin as they walked, twirling in a circle with her face raised to the sky. "We should come here more often."

"We can if you want," Mami offered, trying to forget about her mental issues. Maybe brute force was the answer. "I like it here, too."

"Right?" Kiku exclaimed, running a bit ahead and turning to face the blonde, flashing a gorgeous smile. "I kind of want to go walking on the beach, but I'm not wearing the right shoes for it. We should come here again at night and walk by the beach!"

She was like a free spirit, just barely anchored to this world by her emotions. Mami wondered how the brunette didn't just cast aside her physical chains and simply ascend to heaven right there, taking the ethereal moonlit staircase she could never use herself. Kiku was just so open, so _real._ The girl wasn't the least bit afraid to wear her heart on her sleeve.

"Wow! Mami, look!" A shooting star was jetting across the night sky above them, and Kiku tilted her head back to watch it pass, so easily enraptured by the cosmic phenomenon that it made Mami's heart do little flip flops.

She wanted to protect that smile. She didn't know if she was in love with Kiku or not. She didn't know if she understood what love _was_ or not. But she did know that never in a thousand eternities did she ever want to hurt the girl twirling in front of her on the lamp lit road, captivated by nature. Mami had already hurt Kiku once before, by ignoring the girl's thoughts and feelings. She never wanted to do that again.

Which was why she wanted so desperately to feel what Kiku did. She wanted to know definitely that she loved the brunette deeply. It would be so much easier if she did. She was trying so hard, but love wasn't something one could force, was it?

It made an ugly sort of fear sprout in her chest, a fear very much like the kind she had felt inside the wreckage of the car. The emotions of a scared and lost little girl. Fear that she wasn't good enough for Kiku. Fear that she would never be able to feel the same way.

Fear that she would hurt her best friend again.

"Feels just like a romance movie, doesn't it?" Kiku asked, coming to a stop in the middle of the road. Mami walked a few steps before stopping herself, standing just before her partner. "Young couple, alone, walking beneath the stars…"

Mami found herself smiling bemusedly. "Sounds like something you would enjoy."

Kiku flushed gently, stepping forward and closing the distance between them. "Hey, you know I'm a bit of a romantic."

"Just a bit?" Mami asked softly, effectively distracted by the girl's proximity. She was losing control of her composure again. What was _wrong_ with her?

The brunette laughed gently and circled her arms around Mami's neck, pulling them closer to each other. "Okay, maybe a lot."

They kissed then, though it was mostly Kiku doing the leading, as per usual. Mami found herself screwing her eyes shut as they embraced, her fingers tightening around the brunette's elbows. Kiku's lips were so soft, and the girl was being _so_ gentle, betraying a hidden expertise the blonde hadn't known was there. That thought should have given her comfort, but her heart rate only increased as the seconds dragged by.

"Mami," Kiku whispered, pulling back briefly before kissing her again. It was sweet, chaste even, their lips just barely slipping between each other.

Mami tried her very best to reciprocate. She really did. But it was too much at once, the volume of sensations too great to process; her chest was a jumbled mess of emotions, her mind was on fire, and she was so _utterly_ confused at what she was supposed to do and how exactly she was supposed to feel that it literally scared her, because she was lost, floundering, trying to make sense of all this insanity while the gorgeous brunette in front of her seemed to understand it so _naturally_ , by god, how was it so _easy_ for her?

Before she knew it two hands were between them and Mami was forcing Kiku away, holding the girl at arm's length. The look on the brunette's face went from surprised to hurt, then apologetic again. Kiku always thought it was her fault. It was never her fault.

"Ah…sorry. Did I go too far? You could have told me…" the illusionist said tentatively, raising a hand and grasping Mami's wrist.

Mami could feel her pulse roaring in her ears. She could taste Kiku's lip gloss on the tip of her tongue. She felt utterly naked. "I…no. It's not…" she mumbled, trying to say something to the effect that Kiku wasn't to blame, but her tongue felt fat and unusable, and the sentence terminated itself halfway.

The girl in front of her just smiled softly, slipping free of Mami's gasp. "It's okay, Mami. We can move as quickly or as slowly as you want, alright?"

The blonde stared at her for a moment, biting her lip. Then she slipped past Kiku and walked wordlessly home, not trusting her mouth to convey the jumble of emotions she was feeling.

* * *

A week later, she dreamed again.

Mami was beginning to fear going to sleep now. This time the nightmare was shorter, but it made up for this by being doubly horrific.

She was sitting in the backseat of the car, and they were driving along a bright summery road. It was one of those countryside areas, where tall crops rose from the earth on either side of the road, fencing them in like benevolent arms. The sun was high in the sky, and her dad was laughing about something her mother had said, as Mami watched them both lovingly from the back seat.

Her father reached up to clean his glasses with the edge of his shirt, taking his eyes off the road for just a moment. It was just a painfully human error to witness. It was human fallibility that had killed her parents, probably, not anything divine or great like she might want to believe. That hurt even more than fate, even, because it further defined her parents as humans, something she certainly was not.

She knew where the rest of the dream played out from here. She had scene it enough times. Half a second later her father shouted and wrenched at the wheel, the car veered off to the side, and suddenly the world was tilting around them…

This time, her mind surprised her by showing her something she didn't know she still remembered. In the minuscule moment before she blacked out, she saw her mother fly forward in her seat, her belt not on, colliding headfirst into the windshield.

A thick spray of red, the inside of a skull. Fear blacker than the deepest darkness. A single scream, cut short by the ending of a life.

 _"Mami!_ "

Then the dream was finally over, and she faded off hearing, strangely, the melody of 'Clair de Lune.'

Only then did it occur to her that the melody matched her mother's song.

She was sweating again when she woke up, but this time she didn't scream.

There was no car alarm either, just eerie silence, the quiet sound of breathing. Kiku was still asleep, slumbering peacefully in her own bed on the other side of the room.

Mami looked at her and felt that same dark fear again. It was wrong, so utterly wrong. She shouldn't be feeling this way about someone she was supposed to be in love with.

Slipping out of the bed, she grabbed some clothes and her toothbrush before leaving the room.

She showered and brushed her teeth in the second bathroom, not wanting to wake the brunette so early again. It was Sunday, so the store would be closed today. She would let the girl sleep in.

Besides, she needed some time to herself.

After washing up she pulled on the clothes she had grabbed at random. It ended up being a loose hoodie and some long pants, but it was good enough at the present time. She couldn't really bring herself to care about her appearance at the moment, despite her personality.

She sat in the kitchen for a good ten minutes, thinking about what she ought to do.

Finally, she took out her phone and started typing. She didn't know what prompted her to do so, but Mami hadn't really understood herself very well lately.

Fingers dancing across the screen, she sent a brief text to Homura, thinking the raven haired girl was likely to be a habitual early riser.

 _Are you awake?_

The phone buzzed a minute later.

 _Yes. Did you need something?_

Biting her lip, Mami typed out a response. _I'm just…sort of idle right now. Are you busy at the moment? Can I come over?_

Homura's reply was prompt, as expected. _Sure, if you'd like. I'm home alone right now. Come over when you'd like._

Grabbing her keys, Mami scribbled a brief note for Kiku before heading out the door.

* * *

When Mami picked the key out from under Homura's doormat and let herself into the apartment. Most people probably wouldn't have been as frivolous about where they left their keys, but Homura was more than capable of protecting herself from intruders. In fact, she was inclined to pity any potential robbers instead.

The first floor was empty when she walked out of the main hall, the couch pillows thrown to the ground. There was a bowl of cereal sitting on the coffee table, and judging by the fact that it had been licked clean Mami figured it was Kyouko's mess.

The piano was sitting open in the middle of the main room, its black finish shimmering broodingly at her. Mami could remember when Homura had finally taken up playing again, after much pestering from Kiku. The brunette was always forcing the people around her to change. Well, at least Homura seemed to enjoy it. There was sheet music laid out on the stand, presumably from earlier, and Mami took a peek at the title in passing.

 _Clair de Lune  
by Claude Debussy_

She paused for the briefest of moments before moving on, crushing the strains of a certain song that arose in her mind at the memory. It would make her think about there nightmares, and right now she didn't need that from herself.

She began ascending the staircase, figuring Homura must be in her room, but when she poked her head into the bedroom it was empty. Where was Kyouko, too? The couple seemed to be absent from the apartment. There was only a dresser left open half ajar and a bed that looked strangely lopsided, as if its users only slept on one side, despite the fact that two people shared it.

Mami was about to close the door and use her phone when Homura spoke into her mind.

[ _I'm on the roof,_ ] the raven haired girl said, sounding apologetic. [ _Sorry, I forgot to let you know. You can make your way up here, right?_ ]

[ _Be there in a moment,_ ] Mami responded, and Homura sent back a wave of confirmation. Closing the mental channel, the blonde crossed over to the balcony and slipped out onto it, putting both hands on the railing.

Vaulting her weight forward, she leapt on top of the railing and balanced there, making sure she was stable before moving again. Falling from this height wouldn't exactly kill her, but it would still be a pain to walk all the way back up. Trusting her magical instincts, Mami flexed her knees and prepared for the next jump.

She leapt from the railing, launching herself several feet into the air. Making sure to arc her flight path, she floated up towards the roof, the windows of higher floors whizzing by her. She sure hoped no one happened to be looking outside at that moment.

Her jump apexed at the edge of the roof, and she alighted gently on its concrete surface, her hair falling in long tresses around her face. Puffing air at herself, the blonde did her best to fix the unruly locks. She had been unable to put them into their usual curls that morning, as if she had lost the composure to do so. In fact, as the days went on she found herself simply wearing her hair down more often than not.

The rooftop itself was barren and unadorned, unlike the one at their old high school. Homura was sitting at the far end of the empty expanse, a broad looking blanket laid out on the ground so that her clothes wouldn't get dirty.

Mami approached her quietly, knowing that the girl was already well aware of her presence. It was amazingly difficult to sneak up on Homura. The shield user had a thick volume in her hand, using her thumb to flick through the pages. Her other hand was scrawling something on a piece of paper, as she worked at one of those small portable desks with the foldable legs.

The blonde walked around to the other side of the little desk, and was about to step onto the blanket when Homura clucked in disapproval.

"Shoes off, if you don't mind," she said, gesturing towards Mami's feet without looking up.

Smiling bemusedly, Mami kicked off her shoes and joined Homura on the mat, sitting down cross legged across from her at the desk. She tried to read what it was that the girl was writing, but it was in some strange, warped language that looked vaguely familiar, but she still had no idea what it meant.

"What are you doing?" Mami asked, peering at the archaic symbols.

"Lately, I've been studying the linguistics of puella magi," Homura explained briefly, gesticulating towards her work, though this did nothing to assuage Mami's confusion.

"The…linguistics?"

The time traveler nibbled on the butt of her pen, seeming to be caught in some deep consideration. She was wearing her glasses and had her hair pulled up, and she was dressed less than formally. The girl looked almost…homely, in a way. It was a refreshing take on Homura that Mami hadn't been able to see very often.

"Well, basically speaking, magical girls do indeed have a language," Homura elaborated, her pen going back to its scratching. "You might have noticed that your soul gem and ring have these symbols etched into them."

Mami looked down at her ring and noted that Homura was indeed correct; the meaningless runes carved into the jewelry had always been there, and the blonde had always wondered at them herself, but their purpose never seemed to be consequential in any way. In all honesty she had stopped thinking about them.

"Are you saying you can translate them somehow?"

in answer, Homura held up the book she was holding before looking down at it again. "There's a girl in Kazamino who specializes in this sort of thing. Can understand any form of communication in the world, apparently, including that of magical girls. She wrote a book on how to read the symbols for people without her power, which Seiyaku was gracious enough to send me a copy of."

Mami watched Homura transcribe the mysterious language for a moment longer. "What could that be used for, though?"

"Nothing significant. The symbols themselves are heavily symbolic, and they don't really exist anywhere outside the gems of puella magi." Homura finished writing and set her pen down. "Most girls just learn the language in order to understand what their own rings or gems say, since they represent who they are."

Mami eyed the wild looking marks on Homura's paper. A search for self comprehension. She could understand that. "Whose gem are you translating right now?"

Homura held out her palm, and a pulsating purple amethyst materialized above it. "My own, naturally. Interestingly enough, the symbols seemed to have changed ever since my soul joined with Kyouko's. I presume that means the 'meaning' of my gem has changed, but I suppose we'll never know what it said previously."

Mami didn't bother asking what exactly the translation said. She knew intuitively that information like that was very personal. "The mysteries of magical girls are truly endless."

"Mmm." Homura opened a storage portal and surprised by the blonde by pulling a piping hot kettle out of it. "Tea?"

"You know me too well," Mami smiled. Homura smirked back and pulled out some cups as well. "But since when do you store anything other than weapons in there?"

"I don't need those weapons anymore. I'm trying to find ways to apply little bits of magic to everyday life." Homura shrugged. "And always having tea on hand never hurts."

The cups were poured into, and the two girls quietly enjoyed their hot drinks in silence. Mami stared into hers, watching the steam rise and cloud her vision. She thought maybe she could stay up on this roof forever. Safe and unchallenged.

"Where's Kyouko?" she asked offhandedly.

"It's Sunday. She's at church." Homura met Mami's arched eyebrow with a reassuring smile. "I don't know. She's been trying to get back into it lately. It's not something I agree with personally, but I trust her to figure it out soon, either way."

"She never said anything about going to church again," the blonde murmured, sipping her tea.

Homura held a graceful finger to her lips. "Don't tell her you know. I get the impression she wants to keep it to herself. But anyways, enough about us. Did you come here for any particular reason?"

That was Homura, always getting straight to the point. It was hard to stay idle around this girl, not unlike a certain brunette. Mami set her cup down and exhaled slowly.

"I don't know. Not really. I just wanted to…talk, I suppose."

"Hmm. I see." Homura adjusted her glasses before taking another sip of the tea. "What about?"

It was like that moment on New Year's again. The words rose out of her, unbidden, speaking themselves before she could decide against it. "About Kiku."

Homura blinked, then seemed to realize they were out of tea. She summoned a portal and pulled out yet another kettle. "Is something wrong between you two?"

Mami smiled bitterly at the ground as Homura poured more servings. "I guess you could say that. Though most of the issues lie on my end."

"Don't tell me you're ignoring her opinions again?"

Mami shook her head vigorously. "Goodness, no. Not that. It's just…ugh, it's hard to say really. I just don't feel _comfortable._ "

Homura hummed. "Elaborate."

The blonde cast about in her mental inner sea, trying to find the words to put to her emotions. She didn't know why, but she felt the intense need to _make_ Homura understand what she was thinking right now, because maybe then she would be able to understand it, too. She needed to make sense of this heaping mess in her chest.

"I just feel…on edge all the time." She stirred her half empty (or was it half full?) cup around on the desk. "It's weird. When we talk like we normally do everything's fine. I'm not nervous at all. But whenever she initiates something more, whenever she pushes for something that 'normal' couples would do, I just get cagey. I panic. I feel _scared._ It makes no sense. At the very least, she's my best friend. I shouldn't be feeling this way towards her. But I am."

Homura chewed on that for a good while, doodling aimlessly on her paper. "Maybe you're just unused to physical intimacy?"

But Mami shook her head. "No, it's not that. That's not the real issue here."

"Then perhaps you simply aren't homosexual."

Homura's tone was blunt and objective. Mami knew these were all the most logical suggestions to cover first. It was what she herself had done. Of course it was. It would be nonsensical to start anywhere else.

"No. I don't think that's the problem either," she said slowly. "Honestly, at this point, after all the time…I don't think things like that matter to people like us anymore."

"Okay, then what does?"

"Maybe…well, I don't know. That's the thing, I just don't _know,_ " Mami growled, putting both hands against her face. "Kiku's trying so hard to make things work. She so open to me about everything. Even after all the times I shirk away from her she doesn't let her pain show, but I know it's there. She says she can wait as long as it takes, but I can tell she's impatient. I'm _hurting_ her, Homura. When that's the one thing I promised her I would never do."

Homura sighed and set her things aside, wringing her fingers together. "Just what about your relationship scares you so much, Mami? Are you simply afraid because you don't know how to carry yourself?"

Maybe that was it. Maybe she was just terrified because she didn't know what the appropriate response was. How to respond when Kiku kissed her. How to respond to those loving gazes. Mami didn't know. She had never been in love before.

Homura knew this intimately. As she watched the blonde fidget before her, she thought that she understood a bit of her predicament. Everyone had loved Mami while they were in high school; but that had been a superficial kind of 'love,' the kind between student and teacher, perhaps parent and child, but not two lovers on equal footing.

In fact, that was the way most of Mami's relationships worked. She was the older one, the motherly type who could be trusted to look out fro everyone, to cover for you when you were in a pinch. She carried that parental aura with her everywhere she went. And there was a certain detachment to that kind of love. It wasn't as heavy or disorienting as the love Homura felt for Kyouko. There was less heart in it.

Perhaps that was the root of Mami's fear.

"Didn't you have that same problem, Homura?" the blonde suddenly asked her, looking the girl in the eye. "Wasn't it hard for you to open yourself up to Kyouko?"

Frowning, Homura palmed her soul gem, turning it over and over in her hands. "Yes, there was some difficulty there. In all the time loops I had spent trying to save Madoka, I forced myself to become hardened. I convinced myself that it was the best way to save her. And I was probably right. But you know what, Mami? As I was then, Madoka never could have loved me."

The blonde's eyes were wide golden pools. "Why not?"

"Because I became twisted for her sake. Madoka was too naive, too unaware, to understand that without suffering similarly herself, which was something I wouldn't allow. To her I was rarely more than a cold, calloused girl cloaked in mystery. If I had been my original self, perhaps we could have been something. But I threw away that chance for her." Homura paused. "It was different with Kyouko. I don't make the same mistake twice. I allowed myself to be potentially hurt, because that was cost of being in love."

Mami stared at the table. "So love is vulnerability?"

"Not exactly. More like strength through openness."

 _Strength through openness._ She couldn't comprehend it. Her entire life she had survived by placing herself above the fray, by acting as the overseer. She stopped fights rather than taking sides. She loved everyone rather than picking favorites. In a way she supposed that was a mechanical way of approaching things. There was never any vulnerability in those decisions. No risk of getting hurt. There was no pain in the middle.

Homura went back to writing, letting Mami think it out. She understood that this was a very critical point in Mami and Kiku's romance. She had been at this point herself, after all. Luckily she had chosen right, and she wanted her friends to do the same.

Still, she had to worry a little. Mami's greatest enemy had always been herself.

Sighing, she murmured, "You know, I feel like the two halves of your brain are always at war."

The blonde smiled mirthlessly. "I'd bet my soul gem says something about that on it."

Homura held up her own jewel, examining it in the light. It shone a majestic purple. The runes carved into the metalwork seemed to pulsate. "Some words in our language don't exist in the tongue of magic. Conversely, some magical words don't have modern equivalents. I've seen these symbols elsewhere before, you know. In the witch's labyrinths of a world that is no more. One thing I've noticed is that the simplest things are always there: love, hate, despair, conflict."

"And war," Mami added, her smile fading.

"All basic constructs of humanity. People never seem to stop fighting things, even themselves." Homura closed her fist around the soul gem. "Do you know the ancient puellian translation for war? 'Season unending'…and so it has proved."

* * *

Kiku's legs dangled over the edge, as she sat near the lip of the abyss.

She was leaning back on her hands, fingers brushing up against worn concrete. She had her phone playing music and headphones stuck inside her ears, head thrown as she watched the sky, absorbing a silent melody only she could hear. She was sitting on the edge of the sea wall that separated Mitakihara from the beach, and she watched the ocean receded slowly as the day wore on, the sun growing every closer to the horizon.

Mami had been gone all day. Her bed had been empty when Kiku woke up, and the brunette hadn't bothered to call after reading the note she had been left. It was apparent that she was going to be alone today. She tried calling Kyouko, but the redhead seemed to be busy, and didn't pick up.

So she pretty much sat around for a few hours, searching for purpose. The restaurant was closed today, so there wasn't much else for her to do. She needed a hobby, honestly. Or a girlfriend. Well, she had one of _those_ , but when said girlfriend wasn't even home things were going to get a little boring.

Eventually she forced herself to get out of the apartment sometime around late afternoon, taking a randomly winding walk around town. Eventually she ended up near the sea. Somehow she always wound up near the edge of her world, pushed to the brink of what her universe had to offer, searching for the next hope, the next salvation.

She sat herself on top of the sea wall and put on her headphones, watching the sun set.

Thumbing through her music collection, she ultimately put on a studio version of 'Clair de Lune,' which she had to admit had been stuck in her head ever since she heard Homura play it last week. It was just so unique; she couldn't name another song that made her feel the same way that this one did. Joyfully sad, hopelessly hopeful. Like she was forever floating between two extremes, never able to reach out and touch one or the other.

Was that the world Mami inhabited?

If so, maybe this song would take her there.

She sat there for a long time, sometimes looping 'Clair de Lune,' sometimes playing other songs. Eventually the sun set, and she was sitting in relative darkness, watching the black swath of sea wash up against a pale white beach. The road was quiet behind her, but the city was alive in the distance. A world on its own.

What was she going to do about Mami? All she really wanted was for the blonde to be happy. Was it impossible for their two joys to coincide? To Mami's happiness mean her sorrow? She didn't want to believe that. Her schoolgirl heart could not accept that. She was a hopeless romantic. She was a sucker for cheesy movies. She believed in princesses trapped by evil dragons being saved by dashing warriors.

So what could she do, to make Mami understand this?

With her headphones on her ears all this time, she failed to notice the sound of footsteps approaching in the distance, even with her refined hearing. She didn't know someone was standing beside her until she spoke in her ear, startling the brunette out of her thoughts.

"Hey," Mami said, still standing on the sidewalk. She was about ten feet from where Kiku was sitting on the sea wall, but it might as well have been a thousand light years.

She looked back at her girlfriend, trying to muster something awesome and romantic to say in return.

"Hey," she murmured, almost too softly to hear.

Mami walked until she was standing behind Kiku at the sea wall, placing her bag on top of it before speaking. "What are you doing up there?"

"Oh, you know. Just sightseeing. I told you I love the beach."

"Yes, you did," the blonde murmured, turning to watch the waves herself. It was now fully night. The moon was beginning to rouse itself.

They watched in silence for a while. Kiku wondered what someone gazing from afar would think when they saw them. Would they see a couple in love? Sisters? Or just two good friends? The lines between all three were so blurred already.

Suddenly Kiku was standing up on top of the sea wall, startling Mami. Looking up, the blonde saw the brunette kneeling down with a hand extended towards her.

"Come up here with me," the girl said, waving her hand.

The blonde blinked. "Why?"

"Come on, just join me," Kiku insisted, pushing her hand further forward. "I want to walk the beach with you, Mami."

Well, she supposed she owed the girl that much. Reaching up, she took Kiku's hand, and the brunette pulled her up onto the sea wall beside her.

There was a brief moment when Mami was suspended in space, supported only by the strength of Kiku's grip. She made sure to hold on, lest she drop the girl and she fall back to the earth. In that moment, Mami needed her.

Maybe that was the way.

"Are we going to jump down from here?" Mami said, eyeing the twenty foot drop to the beach. They were far from the nearest set of stairs that led to ground level.

"Here, just hold this," Kiku said, handing one strap of Mami's bag to her.

"Huh?" the blonde said, taking hold of it. "Kiku, what are you-"

The illusionist leapt off the end of the sea wall, the other strap of Mami's bag in her hand. Soon enough the bag went taut, and Mami was being yanked along with her, hurtling over the edge of the abyss.

"AH!" she wailed, momentarily forgetting her instincts and falling her arms around in the air. Good god, she was about to eat sand!

She landed squarely in Kiku's arms a moment later, and the next thing she saw was the girl's grinning face beaming down at her.

"You can trust me a bit more than _that_ ," Kiku tutted.

Mami blushed deeply. Her body was nestled against the brunette's form, and the girl showed no indication of letting go. The night sky was nothing but stars past Kiku's face, and for a moment the girl's eyes looked like they belonged up there, in eternal matrimony with the moon.

"Jeez," she finally muttered, slipping back to the ground herself. Her shoes crunched softly against beach sand. "You scared the daylights out of me!"

"Aw, come on. It was fun, wasn't it?" Kiku prodded, but Mami largely ignored her.

"Let's just get this over with," the blonde sighed, making her way down the beach.

"Hey, wait up!"

* * *

It was at this time that they seemed to enter another world.

They walked for a long time, following the line where the sand grew dark from where the tide washed over it, traveling parallel to the sea. Mami didn't know how long they spent there. It could have been hours. It could have been years.

Most of the walk was spent in silence, and Mami found herself watching Kiku discreetly. They had taken their shoes off at one point, dangling them off the ends of their fingers, leaving a long line of toed footprints in the sand behind them. The sand was cool and pleasant between Mami's toes, like the earth was caressing her. The moon made everything look pale and clean; the water shone, and beach glowed, and the cacophonous city was but a muted light in the distance.

She began to understand why Kiku loved the beach.

The brunette looked beautiful, framed by the cosmos like some interstellar goddess. Mami knew for sure that sexual orientation wasn't her issue. There was a definite superficial interest there, in the gorgeous light of her eyes, the hair that framed her face, the lithe and nimble figure.

It was almost soundless. Waves clawing at the shore and the soft squish of wet sand.

The nervous beating of Mami's heart.

"So, did you do anything interesting today?" Kiku's voice was smooth, unabated, like she was perfectly serene standing there on the beach. She was in a white sundress that stopped just short of her knees, and her form seemed to pulsate in the moonlight, almost like a soul gem.

"I spent a little time with Homura." Mami could feel the added weight of the time traveler's book in her bag. The girl had lent it to her before she left, saying she might need it more. The blonde had no idea why she would need to translate ancient magical runes, but she accepted it nonetheless.

"Was Kyouko there?"

"Not when I was. I think she was…busy with something," Mami replied, remembering that the redhead's church going was supposed to be a secret of sorts.

Kiku sighed, a soft, lingering sound. "I called her earlier but she didn't pick up. I wonder what she's up to."

"Who knows?" Mami wondered aloud. "That girl's always getting herself into ridiculous situations."

The brunette laughed at that, and Mami felt herself smiling as well. Moments like these were nice. The kind where it didn't matter what they were to each other. It was only them and the words between.

Another stretch of beach was spent in silence. Soon Mami was content to immerse herself in it. Part of her didn't want to thin about there mental problems. She only wanted to enjoy this time, as it was, unadulterated by thought.

A moment later, Kiku began to sing.

It wasn't singing in the sense that there were real words; the girl simply sang the melody, using onomatopoeias instead of lyrics. The sound floated across the beach unhindered, because they were the only ones there, alone in their own world.

Mami closed her eyes and listened. Kiku had such a beautiful singing voice. It had been ages since she last heard it. Soon enough she realized she recognized the song.

"Clair de Lune," she murmured.

Kiku stopped to smile at her. "You know it?"

"Of course I do. It's a famous song."

But that wasn't really true. She had known this melody before she knew its name. The melody her mother sang along to, during good times and bad.

As Kiku resumed her singing, Mami's mind began putting words to it, almost as if they were being pulled from the vestiges of dreams:

 _Oh, loved one  
Where have you gone?  
Been waiting here for  
An open door_

Eventually she joined in, finishing the last refrain for Kiku. The brunette grinned at her, and then they were both singing 'Clair de Lune' softly to each other as they walked the beach.

What was this feeling right now? This was such a strange situation, they were singing on a beach for crying out loud, but it felt so _nice_. It was such an embarrassing scenario but she couldn't bring herself to stop. She just wanted to sing on this beach forever, with Kiku walking beside her, in their own private moment. Maybe that was why she could do this, be so open; because they were alone.

"Forever waiting, for a day where we won't cry…" it occurred to her too late that she had sung the words aloud, and she clamped her mouth shut immediately, going red in the face.

Kiku glanced at her. "What was that?"

"Oh…" Mami cleared her throat awkwardly. "Just something my mother used to sing. I don't know where she get the words from, really. Maybe she made them up."

"That's pretty cute." Kiku stopped suddenly, the footprints halting with her. "I'm tired. Want to sit down for a bit?"

They sat beside each other on the sand, watching the waves. Those waves drew thoughts out of Mami. She thought about the awkward kiss a week ago. She thought about all the awkward kisses between them. She thought about her mother's song. She thought about Homura and her ancient runes and season unending. She thought about the little girl trapped inside the wreckage of a burning car, scared out of her mind, and most importantly, completely and utterly vulnerable.

"Kiku, I'm sorry," she said softly.

The brunette leaned against the blonde's shoulder, their bodes pressing against each other. "Why?"

"I haven't been myself lately. I keep squandering your efforts to make things work between us. It's my fault. I just didn't know what to do or how to feel. So…I'm sorry."

Kiku sighed and pressed her cheek to Mami's shoulder. "You don't have to apologize. It's okay. I just…I just wish you could give me an explanation, somehow."

Mami considered it. Explaining herself would mean opening up her heart to Kiku. Could she bring herself to do that? Could she expose the true depths of her trauma to this girl? She didn't want to. She _really_ didn't want to. It was the very embodiment of the ugly vulnerability she had learned to hate.

But then she thought about Homura. She thought about 'season unending.' She didn't want to be trapped in this eternal struggle with herself, either. Her eyes had grown tired of that battlefield.

It was strange. This was the third time she was going against what all her instincts were telling her. First on New Year's, then earlier with Homura, and now. She kept pushing herself to do things she was afraid of.

Maybe that was love?

"Once upon a time there was a little girl," she began, leaning back on her hands. Kiku tilted her ear to listen. "A little girl who had everything, until she lost everything. She was driving with her parents when there's an accident. Everyone dies except her."

Kiku said nothing. This was Mami's story. She knew the important details, but it occurred to her then that she had never heard the tale in its unedited entirety. Not like this.

"She wakes up alone inside the car." Mami's voice was trembling but she didn't stop. "The seatbelt almost chokes her to death. She has to cut her way out of it. Then she turns and sees her parents dead in the front seat. Dad's neck broken. Mom's head destroyed."

Kiku could feel her heart rate increasing.

"She doesn't know what to do. She's scared to death. She wishes she would just die. She's never felt fear like this before. The fear of not knowing what to do. The fear of foreign emotion."

"And then Kyubey comes in," Kiku whispered. She put her hand against the sand and laced her fingers through Mami's, pressing closer against her.

The blonde shuddered at her touch. "After I contracted, I think I left something behind in that wreckage. Just ever since then, I've _needed_ to be in control of my surroundings. I don't know how to handle it when things happen in ways I don't expect. I can't keep my emotions in check. I don't know what to do."

Kiku wordlessly stroked her thumb across Mami's wrist.

"I know it's stupid. I know it makes no sense." Mami's voice was growing angrier and more agitated, out of frustration with herself. "Maybe I'm crazy. I don't know. But every since you confessed to me, Kiku, things have been too unpredictable for me. I think that's why I keep breaking away. I'm not trying to say it's your fault, because it isn't. It's mine. But I just don't know what to do about it."

"Oh, Mami…" Kiku whispered, burying her nose into the crook of the blonde's neck. "Is that why you were so shaken after that car crash earlier?"

Mami shivered at the memory, at the sensation of Kiku's nose gliding across her flesh. "If a mere car alarm goes off close enough I get anxiety. If I'm sleeping, I dream about the accident. It wasn't like this before, Kiku. It only came back once we started dating. Maybe because my mind associates lack of control with the day I contracted. I don't know. But it isn't your fault."

Kiku sighed against her. "I know."

The stars watched in silence.

Mami closed her eyes. The feeling of hair tickling her ear. Soft skin against her arm. Her own toes, lightly coated in sand, propped up beside Kiku's.

She tried to internalize all of it.

"This time I'll tell you a story," Kiku said. "I'll tell you the story of a girl I know."

Mami said nothing, only waited.

"Once upon a time there was a girl in love," the brunette began. "The person she loved was beautiful and mysterious. There was always something about her she could never understand. Some days she felt like she would never figure out what it was, that thing that separated her own world from the world her loved one lived in."

Mami opened her eyes. This was _Kiku's_ story.

"But one day she found out. And the world of her loved one was dark and terrible." the illusionist paused before continuing. "Her loved one was about to die. She was offered one chance, a single shot at saving her, and simultaneously entering her world. So she took it. She contracted, and became a magical girl. And her wish…was to always protect the girl she loved."

Mami's heart fluttered, and she was pretty sure she was blushing again. She tried to avert her gaze down to the sand, but then Kiku was turning to look at her, and her golden eyes were trapped by hazel ones.

"What I'm trying to say is that I gave my entire soul in order to protect you." the girl's eyes shone with a dying light. "So if you're ever feeling vulnerable, or lost, or scared, I want you to know that I'll always be there for you. Life isn't something people should have to shoulder alone. That's why love was invented, I think. So that people could find their way to each other."

As Kiku took Mami's hands, as the moon shone in the sky and the sea went on forever, Mami thought about this moment, and wondered why she loved it so much. Everything was new to her; this talk of love, walks on the beach, heart to hearts. But it was the discovery of something new rather than the fear of the unknown. Only problem was, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

But if she could trust Kiku, she wouldn't have to worry about that anymore.

Maybe she would take a chance for once.

Leaning forward, Mami disregarded her will for the fourth time.

"Okay," she whispered.

Kiku kissed her, and this time she didn't pull away.

And thus the season ended.

* * *

A/N

Further research indicated that the soul gems and rings of puella magi don't actually have symbols on them. It must have been something my mind assumed by accident. But I liked the idea, so I decided to keep it.

I tried to push some more progression in this chapter. Mami's psyche is so complex and difficult to understand, even though I'm the one writing it. Tell me what you think about her thought process, and whether it is justified.

This arc will conclude in the next chapter. Thanks to everyone who chose to read this far!

~Banshee


	8. Loved One (3)

Mami and Kiku Arc (Part Three)

Chapter 8: Loved One

That night, Mami slept more soundly than she had in weeks.

It was nearly midnight when she and Kiku returned to the apartment, still tracking little bits of sand across the floor. Part of her didn't want to clean up those bits of earth they had brought into the building with them. To her the beach was now a place of emotional significance. She didn't want to wipe it away so soon, but simply letting it sit there would have been more than a little ridiculous, so she cleaned it up anyway.

She went and filled up the bath afterwards, and she and Kiku dunked their feet inside. As they washed heels and between toes, Mami was acutely aware of the brunette's presence next to hers; always on the corner of her vision, ever present. Yet she did not fear the lingering sense of accompaniment. Not anymore.

"What are you thinking about?" Kiku asked her, bumping their shoulders together. Between them, the sound of swishing water filled any silences.

Mami found herself smiling bemusedly. "You always ask me that."

The brunette laughed sheepishly, shrugging before going back to cleaning herself. "I don't know. It's something I wonder about a lot. I feel like I don't understand you as well as I should."

The blonde sighed. "Me neither."

The bath water was starting to turn a light shade of brown from all the sand. Mami watched the larger grains bobbing near the surface of the water, up and down, trying to stay above consumption.

"Besides," she said, "The inside of my head is probably a total mess."

Kiku surprised her by snorting at that. "Really?" she asked, reaching over for the soap. She was still in her white sundress. "I think your mind is beautiful."

It was said so nonchalantly, that for a moment Mami almost missed it. By the time she had registered the words it was too late to say anything in response. That was Kiku. Nothing scripted about her. She would drive every director in the world insane.

The strange thing about their bedroom was that there were two beds for two people, but they were pushed towards each other so that there was barely any space between them. In fact only the paper thin crack between the two mattresses separated Mami's bed from Kiku's.

When Mami slipped beneath the covers, tiredness dragging down at her eyelids, she felt Kiku's fingers slipping between her own. Eventually the brunette fell asleep like that, face pressed against the pillow, her arm bridging the gap between them.

Mami lay staring at the ceiling, watching shadows slide across its surface whenever car headlights flooded the road outside. She thought about how much she hated cars. She thought about how she had never really considered learning how to drive. She thought about how she always insisted on wearing the seatbelt whenever she rode the bus, even though it wasn't demanded by law.

Could love make her impervious to fear? Some would say it could. Homura seemed to be a good enough example. The two of them had been very much alike, in the past. Alone and struggling to be strong in the face of travesty. But the time traveler was so different now. Content with her lot in life. Despite all the uncertainty that came with being a magical girl, Homura never seemed to be worried about it, and Mami didn't think it was a facade either.

On the other hand, the blonde felt she had never really been able to leave that behind. The crushing fear of vulnerability. It wasn't like she could deny that the danger was there. What was the word? What did you call it when you smiled, even while knowing demons waited on the horizon?

Trust. The word was probably trust.

Closing her eyes, Mami concentrated on the warmth of Kiku's fingers and fell asleep.

She did not dream.

* * *

Halfway through the night, a car alarm went off again.

It tore through the air like a cleaver; a window was thrown open across the street, there were shouted threats, then the sound of running footsteps. Panicked shouts as a supposed criminal fled the scene.

But Mami only heard the siren.

She felt her body seizing up before anything else. Fingers curling in on themselves, then fingers curling around her ears, before her legs curled in on her stomach, as she devolved into the fetal position. She started crying out loudly, not exactly screaming but more like moaning aggressively, halfway between screaming and yelling. More people were shouting outside, but she could barely process what they were saying, the siren was scrambling her brains like her mother's brains had been scrambled all over that fucking windshield-

Sheets rustling behind her, then Kiku was holding her from behind, her arms coming around to loop about Mami's stomach. The blonde felt herself being pulled back, until she was leaning against the girl's front, smooth skin gliding across her own raised hairs.

"Shh. It's okay," Kiku whispered. She stroked Mami's hair, pushing wild bangs away from golden eyes. "It's okay. Cover your ears. Cover your ears, it'll be over soon…"

Mami screwed her eyes shut and clapped both hands over her ears, and Kiku held her tightly until the man across the street finally grumbled something noncommittal and cancelled his car alarm. Then it was blessed silence. Mami's body sagged against her partner's immediately afterwards, as all her muscles had been taut.

They sat there like that for a while, Mami's chest rising and falling heavily, though it slowed steadily as the clock on the wall ticked on. Kiku was kneeling on Mami's bed, holding the girl against her, gently tucking a strand of blonde hair behind an ear.

Finally the night was still, and Mami found her eyelids drooping again. She thought she could fall asleep like that, in Kiku's warm embrace.

Sensing that her partner was beginning to doze off, Kiku set Mami against the pillows and made to return to her own bed, but was preempted when a hand grabbed her wrist.

Looking back, she saw Mami staring almost pleadingly at her.

"Don't…don't go," the blonde said softly, swallowing heavily. When Kiku blinked, she added, "I'm afraid…that I'll have the nightmares again. Just…just for tonight. Stay with me."

Smiling gently, Kiku crawled back over to Mami and slipped beneath the covers beside her, nestling close to the other girl. Mami wiggled over to make room for her, and then they were gazing at each other as their heads rested on the rather large pillow, strangely captivated with one another.

Then Mami blushed, and Kiku's heart did little somersaults at the sight. Prying one hand from the sheets to rest it on the pillow between them, the blonde said, "Don't worry. It's…just for tonight."

Kiku captured that hand and kissed it, and they fell asleep with their fingers intertwined once more.

"I'll stay as long as you like."

* * *

When Mami woke up, she was smiling.

Kiku had her head resting against the blonde's chest, hair just barely tickling the girl's exposed collarbone. Mami's own hand was looped loosely around the brunette's waist. The morning sun was filtering in through the windows, but the inside of their bedroom still looked gray and frozen. They were still suspended in their own moment in time. The dream wasn't over yet.

Their legs were tangled hopelessly together beneath the sheets. Mami had to resist letting out a surprised squeak when she shifted and smooth skin slid against itself. She had always been quite well aware that her friend had a graceful figure, but…she was just now beginning to realize the implications of this fact. As their legs continued to brush together, as Mami's fingers glided across Kiku's hips, she felt a weird sort of tension gathering in her gut, but it wasn't unpleasant. More like it was leading her somewhere, urging her towards something.

Was _this_ sexual arousal?

She blushed horribly at the thought, and she began smacking herself gently in reprimand, which ended up rousing Kiku.

"Mrrghh," the brunette grumbled, pressing her nose to Mami's collarbone. "Morning already?"

Mami watched as the girl blearily opened her eyes. Eventually her eyes drifted down to Kiku's lips, and she was seized by the sudden desire to kiss them.

She tried to quash it immediately.

"It's better than waking up late like you always do," Mami said, having recovered enough to make a level headed response.

Kiku just giggled sleepily, obviously not yet fully conscious. She pushed herself up until she was leaning on her elbows, puffing frizzy brown hair out of her face. Then she crawled up the length of Mami's body and suddenly got into her personal space.

"Kiku?" the blonde breathed, her heart blossoming in her chest.

"Good morning, Mami," the brunette murmured drowsily, before kissing her full on the mouth.

It was different from their previous kisses. The one on New Year's had been filled with a nervous sort of passion, the innocence of love. The ones during the past couple of weeks had been gentle, brief trysts; those kisses had been sweet even, as Kiku did her best to accommodate for Mami's lack of expertise.

This one though…this one was charged with a drop of lust. Mami found herself breathing in sharply when their lips met, Kiku's head angled so that they started off much deeper than she was used to, hands sinking into the bed as the brunette continued to slide up Mami's body.

The blonde's hands came up to grasp weakly at her partner's waist. She tried desperately to get a word in between the hungry, questing kisses and the equally aggressive tongue, but she could not; the strange tension in her gut was back in full force now, overcharging her entire system so that she could barely think straight.

Kiku's tongue glided across Mami's lower lip, and the blonde found herself making a horribly embarrassing whimpering sound, as if it had been drawn out of her against her very will. "Kiku-"

"Mami," the illusionist sighed, one hand coming up to slip behind the blonde's neck, reaching up to where the girl's hair was thickest, nails scratching gently as she held Mami in place in order to steal more kisses. Pleasant tingles erupted down the length of Mami's spine at the sensation, nails against skin, lips on tongue, the profound noise of their labored breathing that made her heart absolutely palpitate.

It occurred to her then that she was actually _enjoying_ this, the murmuring of her own name, the addicting way her hair would be tugged, how soft Kiku's body was against hers. She wanted this. And she was so scared to want it, because she would be vulnerable again, bearing her inexperience in her emotions to be hurt once more. But a large part of her didn't care anymore. A large part of her simply wanted to _live_ , to escape the demons of her past.

Pushing one leg up against her partner, Mami rolled them over so that she was on top.

The surprise in Kiku's eyes were evident, and Mami had to admit she was impressed with herself as well. She had never been one to dive headfirst into a situation she wasn't completely comfortable with. Even now her instincts were fighting against her. But she ignored them. The only thing that mattered right now was the girl laying so invitingly below her.

As Mami lowered herself so that their noses were touching, Kiku whispered, "I'm surprised you're so confident already."

There was a catch in her voice, and Mami looked up. "Is something wrong?"

The brunette chuckled, a muted sound that made her chest vibrate, which Mami could feel against her own. "Not really. I was just afraid that you might not want this."

"I _do_ want this," Mami insisted, before summoning as much bravery as she could and kissing Kiku briefly of her own accord. "After all…

…I think you're gorgeous."

This time it was Kiku's turn to blush, and her fingers curled in her girlfriend's hair, as Mami attempted to change something fundamental about herself.

* * *

Some hours later Kiku was standing on the balcony of their apartment, hanging up the laundry to be dried by the sun. They had a mechanical dryer, but the weather was nice today, and she had always wanted to try doing something like this. Just another strike off her bucket list.

As she stretched to her tip toes to rack a sweater, she thought back to that morning and couldn't help feeling a little giddy. That had been the first time Mami had actively reciprocated to any of her advances. After so many months of stalling, success felt so _good_.

It wasn't as if they had gone all the way or anything. She was smart enough not to push for that, not to mention that she wasn't exactly mentally prepared for such a thing either. Their tryst had never gone past exploring kisses and wandering hands, but it had been enough for Kiku for now. She had literally just made out with a hot girl she had been crushing on for _years_. What wasn't great about that?

Leaving the laundry for a bit, Kiku flailed her arms in the air and squealed quietly for a moment, needing to released the happy tension in her chest.

"What are you doing?"

Freezing, Kiku turned to see Mami frowning at her through the screen door, confusion written all over her face.

"Oh, uh…you know. Just some cardio," Kiku flubbed scrambling back towards the laundry basket. "I'm all done now!"

The blonde just frowned again. "There are better ways to strengthen your heart, you know. We could go jogging if you'd like-"

"I'm fine, Mami," Kiku laughed, racking a shirt on the clothesline.

Mami smiled instinctively at the sound. She didn't really get it, but if Kiku was laughing then she didn't really care. Pushing the screen aside, she stepped out onto the balcony with her girlfriend. Crossing the distance between them, she reached out and hugged the brunette from behind.

"W-Woah," Kiku murmured, caught off guard by the embrace, but she didn't pull away. An open clothespin was pinched in one hand. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to thank you," Mami said, breathing against the nape of the girl's neck. "For last night. For helping me get through the car alarm."

Kiku relaxed, the clothespin falling to her side. "Oh, that. Of course, Mami. I told you I'll always be there if you need me."

Mami squeezed her tighter. "I know. But saying and actually doing are two different things."

"That's true."

A slow wind swept past the balcony, ruffling the clothing hanging above them. They looked like white flags flying against the azure of the sky. But to Mami they didn't symbolize surrender. They meant peace.

Kiku was in a light blouse, and through the thin fabric Mami could feel the contours of the girl's abdomen. The silkiness of the blouse itself. Her nose tickling the girl's neck. The rustling of trees in the wind. Like she had last night on the beach, she did her best to internalize all of it. To remember this feeling forever.

"When I'm scared, I usually shut myself off from other people," Mami said. "But you were there to stop me before I did. I'm glad you were there. I feel like…if I have you by my side, I could learn to appreciate vulnerability. I think I could learn to love. To love you."

A contented smile crept across Kiku's face, and her hands found Mami's.

"I'm happy to hear that."

* * *

Later that night Homura invited them out, saying that Kyouko knew someone who 'owed them a favor.'

The someone happened to be the owner of one of the most high class restaurants in Mitakihara, as in the kind that you were supposed to dress at least semiformal at. Kiku had been a little skeptical as to how the restaurant's owner had come to 'owe' them, but she preferred not to ask. Anything shady involving Kyouko was usually best left unknown.

Regardless, it still meant they needed to choose something to wear.

Kiku was more into fashion than Mami was, so her predicament wasn't as great. She ended up going with something white again, a semiformal wear that went a little past her knees.

Mami took a little longer to decide, fretting for hours behind a closed door about what to go with, not letting Kiku in despite her insistences that she could help. Ultimately the brunette sat impatiently in the main room, waiting for her partner to come out.

Eventually the door did finally open, and the girl who strode through seemed to have come out of another world.

Black. She was in all black. It went past her thighs and was in no way revealing, but the dress seemed to hug her in all the right places, down to the modest gap around the collarbone that betrayed the perfect amount of cleavage. Kiku knew immediately that she was going to have some difficulty keeping her eyes away from that general area tonight.

She was wearing her hair down this time too, instead of putting them into their usual ringlets. The lush golden mane tumbled down her back before stopping when it was level with her shoulder blades, the ends curls so that they tapered inward. She was wearing a flower hairpin in her hair, not unlike the one she had when she was in full puella magi form, and though she barely used any makeup her eyes seemed to shine.

Kiku felt her breathing cut short the second she laid eyes upon the blonde, and she knew she was in trouble.

"Um…so, how do I look?" Mami asked timidly, and Kiku realized suddenly that she had been staring. Swallowing, she watched as Mami did a little turn around to showcase herself; part of the brunette wanted to watch her twirl for eternity.

"You look…" she tried to find the right word for it, but her vocabulary was too small, or perhaps such a word simply didn't exist. "You look…holy shit, Mami. You look _amazing._ "

The blonde flushed modestly, reaching out to swat Kiku on the arm. "Geez…I always tell you to watch your language. So…you like it?"

"I _love_ it," Kiku corrected, stepping back to appreciate the view some more. The girl really did look stunning. "I think I'm gonna have to take a cudgel to beat all the thirsty guys off you."

Mami rolled her eyes. "Now you're just being ridiculous."

Kiku smirked, and she dug her fingers firmly into the blonde's hips. "The only ridiculous one here is you, Mami. Tempting me like this…"

Mami reddened. "Can't you wait until after we get back home?" she asked, sounding more hushed than she intended.

Kiku blinked, then her eyes went round. "So…you're saying I get to?"

"I-I never said that!"

They ended up being a few minutes late to their reservation, mostly because Kiku kept stopping every fifty feet to gawk at her. Mami knew she should have been more annoyed, but she was more flattered than anything else. No one had really told her that she was beautiful before. Whether they thought it or not.

It turned out the restaurant in question didn't accept latecomers due to how packed they always were, but a dash of illusionary magic from Kiku was more than enough to solve the problem. As they were admitted into the building and walked through its dark, dimly lit interior, Mami touched the girl teasingly on the shoulder.

"My hero," she cooed.

Kiku grinned. "Anytime."

The interior of the restaurant was dark and atmospheric, with muted orange lamps being the only real source of light. Kiku found herself pressing close to Mami as they walked down the main hall, weirdly paranoid of bumping into something by accident. Not to mention that pressing against Mami had its own benefits.

At last they entered the main room. There were several small, circular tables scattered sporadically across the floor, each one with a single candle burning merrily at its center. It was peacefully quiet, as everyone spoke it polite, muted undertones, accompanied by the occasional clink of silverware. There was a small stage at the far end of the room, but it was currently empty, with what looked like a piano sitting at its center, covered by a sheet.

It was so, well… _high class_ in there that for a moment Kiku was afraid of making noise or even moving, lest she disturb the sophisticated atmosphere.

That was, until Kyouko decided she didn't give much of a damn.

"Yo! Guys! We're over here!" the redhead hollered, shouting clear across the room from where they were sitting. Beside her, Homura face palmed hard.

Sighing in exasperation, the two of them began weaving their way towards the table, trying to ignore the irritated glares they caught. Soon they reached their friends' table and sat down, while Homura was in the middle of chewing out an unapologetic Kyouko.

"Remind me why I ever go out with you in public again?" the shorter girl grumbled, rubbing at her forehead.

"Because I'm awesome?" Kyouko said, feigning ignorance.

Homura just rolled her eyes. She was in a pale lavender dress that complimented her hair. Kiku also noticed that the girl was actually wearing earrings, which was strange to her at first, since Homura never came across as the type to care about jewelry, much less own any. But she had to admit the girl looked pretty with them.

"Hello, you two," Homura sighed. She gestured towards her girlfriend. "Let's hope we can make it through the night without getting kicked out because of her."

"Hey, you don't have to worry," Kyouko insisted, crossing her arms. She was dressed a little less formally in a boyish looking blazer. "I told you this guy owes me! He might be an idiot but he isn't dumb enough to double cross me. He knows what happens when people double cross me."

"What happens, exactly?" Mami asked Homura.

The time traveler sipped at her ice water. "I wouldn't know. I haven't gotten caught yet."

Kyouko nodded vigorously. " _Exactly._ Wait, what?"

"Anyways," Homura interrupted smoothly, "Long time no see, Mami. You look nice today."

Mami blinked at the unexpected compliment. "Oh…thank you. I think you look nice too."

Kiku sent a telepathic twinge of jealousy in Homura's direction. [ _You know she's dating_ me _,_ _right?_ ]

[ _I am well aware. I meant nothing by it. You don't have to be so possessive._ ] Homura's eyes bored into her from across the table. [ _I can already see you two flirting beneath the table._ ]

Biting her lip, Kiku retracted her hand, which seemed to confuse Mami, but she tactfully refrained from saying anything. Across the table, Homura smiled bemusedly. Kiku stuck her tongue out at her.

"Shall we order?" Mami sighed, cracking open the menu.

* * *

The next hour or so was, thankfully, a bit more mundane. They ordered food and it was delivered by a nervous looking man who seemed to be the one who 'owed' Kyouko, judging by the way he left as soon as possible. Kyouko just rolled her eyes, and Kiku shook her head, but didn't ask.

About half an hour in someone dressed rather formally came onto the stage and uncovered the piano, before sitting down and playing some background music while they ate. It was all very quaint, and the food was excellent, not to mention that Kyouko had somehow convinced the waiter to give them wine, and she was starting to get a little tipsy. But she couldn't forget her real purpose in being here.

[ _Are you ready?_ ] Homura asked, her, sipping at her own wine. She had had more than Kiku but seemed totally unaffected.

[ _Yeah. Let's do this,_ ] Kiku replied, wiping her mouth with a napkin. [ _Before I get drunk._ ]

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom," Kiku announced, rising from her seat. "I'll be right back." she walked her fingers across Mami's shoulders before leaving, disappearing into the murkiness of the room.

"Oh, what a coincidence," Homura said blandly, setting her napkin aside. "My bowel movements must be synced with Kiku's. If you'll excuse me."

Then Homura was gone too, leaving Kyouko and Mami alone with each other.

"She's a strange one, that Homura," Mami chuckled, holding a fist to her lips.

"Tell me about it," Kyouko sighed, putting her fork down. "Sometimes it's hard to keep up with her."

"I figured it would be the other way around with you two."

"You'd be surprised."

"Mmm." Mami swirled her wine around in its glass and watched it. "Do you ever feel like she's going to leave you behind one day?"

To her surprise, the redhead just grinned.

"Well that's the _fun_ of it, Mami. I really don't know. But I damn sure hope not."

Mami smiled. "Me too."

It occurred to her then that the piano music had stopped. The man who had been playing until then had risen from the bench and was standing behind the microphone set up on a stand near the front edge of the stage, adjusting it before speaking into it.

There was a brief smattering of applause for his performance, which he accepted with a bowed head. Then he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, thank you for coming tonight. We now have a special performance that was requested earlier today, by a friend of one of our staff."

 _A special performance?_ Mami thought, turning to face the stage. _I hope Kiku comes back in time to see it._

The man raised his arm towards the right side of the stage. "I present to you, misses Akemi Homura and Hanezawa Kiku."

Mami's eyes went wide as two graceful figures stepped onto the stage, one dressed in lavender and the other in pure white. She was more concerned with the one in white, since that person happened to be Kiku, as the brunette politely accepted the microphone from the man, who departed from the stage. Behind her, Homura took a seat at the piano bench, reaching down to adjust it to her much smaller height.

"What the hell?" Mami whispered, before clapping a hand over her mouth. It wasn't like her to swear.

Kyouko just laughed, leaning back in her seat. "I know, right? Kiku's the only one I know who would throw something like this together in less than a day. Guess I gotta give her credit."

 _Credit for what?_ Mami wondered, turning back to the stage. Kiku was clearing her throat, preparing to address the night's diners sitting before her.

"Uh…hi," she said nervously, clearing her throat a second time. "This song…is for a very special someone. Someone very close to my heart. So I hope she will hear me. I know this is, like, _really_ cliche and everything, but anyone who knows me knows that I'm a sucker for that romantic stuff."

She looked back at Homura, who by now had adjusted the bench. After receiving a confirming nod, she turned back to the front.

"So without further ado or anything…I hope you guys enjoy."

There was a brief wave of encouraging applause, after which Homura breathed in deeply, laying her fingers on the keys.

When she began to play, a still hush fell over the audience. Homura's music had that sort of effect on people. It was both eerie and soothing at once. It was the kind of music that made you want to stop and listen.

A moment later Kiku began to sing, following the melody of a simplified 'Clair de Lune':

 _Oh, loved one  
Where have you gone?  
Been waiting here for  
An open door_

Mami put a hand to her mouth. She couldn't believe it. This…it was her mother's song. But how could Kiku have known the entire song by heart?

Kyouko saw the look on Mami's face and smiled affectionately. "This is all for you, Mami. Sorry to keep you in the dark. She wanted to surprise you."

"And she sure did…" Mami murmured, letting her hand fall to her lap as she began to listen, to the sound of her mother's song being sung in a voice that was not her own.

 _Forever waiting  
For a day where we won't cry  
Forever waiting  
For a day with no good byes…_

Well. That was it, wasn't it? Mami didn't think there were any more lyrics beyond that point. She had never been able to dream past this part of the song. Closing her eyes, she expected the song to fade out. But it didn't.

 _Oh, loved one  
Why do you hide?  
These arms will keep you  
Safe inside  
Forever waiting  
Season unending…_

Mami didn't know if these lyrics were made up, if they were real, or if this entire day had been a dream. All she knew was that it felt like Kiku was singing directly to her, and only to her, like they were the only ones in a black empty galaxy of emotion, like they were beneath the stars like they had been last night on the beach, in their own world, apart from all else.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" Kyouko said softly, distracting Mami from her thoughts.

The blonde licked her lips, which had gone dry; the entire restaurant seemed to be in awe, entranced by Homura piano, by Kiku's pristine voice. The two of them really could have made a career out of music. They were that good. "Do you mean Homura or Kiku?"

"Both of them." Kyouko looked across the table at her, the candle at the center of the table burning between them. "They're such special girls, Mami. I'm sure you can see it too. The kind who can bring people like you and me to our full potential. Homura is the reason why I was able to leave my demons behind. And I'm sure Kiku means the same to you."

 _Just for you and me  
Serendipity  
Everlasting seas  
Are what we can be…_

For a moment, if she looked hard enough, she could see what Kyouko meant. There was a sort of ethereal glow that surrounded Kiku at that moment. It felt like the girl's voice was exposing her every emotion, laying them out to be judged by the eye of a god she hated, but she was strangely okay with it. She was okay with it because she could trust Kiku to be there for her. Vulnerability was no long a weakness.

"Just look at them go," Kyouko breathed softly, effectively captivated. "Look at them go, Mami. Our guardian angels…"

She knew only Homura really had wings, but tonight she could see them on Kiku too, sprouting from her back to match the perfect white of her dress.

* * *

Mami couldn't bring herself to face Kiku until they returned to their apartment.

There had been uproarious applause after the song ended. Many people had demanded an encore, but there was none, as the two girls returned to their seats to finish their meals. Kyouko had thumped the brunette enthusiastically on the back, shouting her congratulations, but Mami didn't really know what to say. But their eyes met across the table at one point, and they both smiled instinctively.

Soon both the food and wine was out, and it was time to go home. They waved goodbye to Homura and Kyouko once more before returning to their apartment. And it was only then that Mami could put words to her feelings.

"Kiku," she said, the moment they were in the hall, door closing behind them.

The brunette turned back to face her, a small smile on her face. "Yes?"

"I…" the words fell apart on her tongue as she closed the distance between them. "I don't know what to say."

The illusionist smirked lovingly, and she placed a teasing finger on Mami's lips. "Sometimes that's best."

But Mami couldn't be satisfied with that. Brushing the girl's finger aside, she took Kiku's cheeks in her hands and kissed her fully, trying to speak through her actions instead, though she didn't know how good at that she was yet.

When they pulled apart, Kiku was flushing with an impressed look on her face.

"Wow," she murmured, touching her own lips this time. "You aren't half bad."

Mami just laughed giddily, still trying to figure herself out. She might as well start with the most obvious question. "How did you know the rest of the song?"

Kiku's lips curved, and she looped her arms around Mami's neck. "You talk in your sleep. And…I sort of found this."

From her bag she produced what looked like a small photograph, turned over so that she couldn't see who was in it.

"I found it when I was cleaning the closet last week," Kiku explained, handing it to Mami. "I felt like I should give it to you, but I wanted to wait for the right time. I…wanted it to mean something, I guess."

Turning the photo over, Mami looked down at it.

It was a photo of her mother. The woman was sitting in a chair in the middle of a wide grassy field, with a younger version of Mami bouncing on her lap. Both girls were laughing in the photo, about what the blonde did not know, but she didn't really care. All that mattered was that her mother was smiling.

For years she had only been able to remember the horror of her mother's last moments, and the pain of death, of loss. As time went on she had been so consumed by it that she began to lose her happier memories of her parents, until she was left only with the car crash, the one that had haunted her dreams.

But now, in her hand, lay a vestige of a better past.

She turned the photo over again, and there, on the back, the lyrics to the entire song were scrawled in her mother's handwriting.

 _Loved One  
by Tomoe Eri_

Something fell from her face and splashed onto the photo, and only then did Mami realize she was crying. Fat tears were falling out of her eyes, and she couldn't stop them for the life of her, but she didn't want to either.

Kiku held her, and Mami began to sob, as the grief of the past three years escaped all at once, the grief she had not allowed herself to feel, because she had been too afraid to be vulnerable again.

But she also wept because she could finally let go. She could finally move on, and leave her demons behind. She could return to that burning wreck and save the scared little girl she had left behind in there, and carry them both to tomorrow.

"Thank you," she shuddered, once, between sobs.

"Anything for you, Mami," Kiku whispered, planting a kiss on her head.

"Anything for a loved one."

* * *

Some time later, Mami happened to remember the book Homura had lent to her.

Digging around in her desk, she pulled the large volume out, setting it down before her. It was the magical book Homura had been using to translate puellian symbols earlier, but she had completely forgotten about it in the wake of recent events. She wondered why the girl would even bother to give it to her.

Well, she supposed she might as well use it.

Grabbing the volume, she carried it over to the bed, summoning her soul gem as well. Flipping through the old, worn pages, she began to build a rudimentary understanding of the ancient language, trying to make sense of the symbols on her ring and gem.

It wasn't easy, and it certainly taxed her mind, but after a couple hours her grasp of the alien tongue was strong enough to translate basic symbols. Flipping through more pages, she matched the runes there with the ones on her soul gem, scribbling down the translated letters one by one.

At last she was finished, and she leaned back to absorb her handiwork.

 _Justice  
Strength  
Love_

She stared at the three words for a long time, before smiling to herself and closing the book. If that was the true meaning of her soul right now, she was content with it.

Part of her wondered if her gem had always read that way, or if it had changed somehow, like Homura's had after her soul joined with Kyouko's. Perhaps she would never know. Perhaps she would remain in the dark forever.

But she was okay with that.

"Mami, come on! We have to go open the store!" Kiku's voice floated in from outside the door.

After all, she had learned to live with a little chaos.

"Coming!" she called back, before tossing the book onto her desk, opening the door and running off to join her loved one.

* * *

A/N

And so it ends.

This marks the end of the Mami/Kiku arc that I've been wanting to write for a while. As I predicted, the intrigue for these chapters was rather low, and I understand that not as many people would be interested in reading them. But I'm glad I wrote it anyway, because I left these two as a real loose end in the original story, and I wanted to deliver for those who actually did want to read more of Mami and Kiku's story. So for those of you who did read this arc, thank you.

As for my plans with this story from this point, I will be returning to the oneshot formula for now. Eventually, however, I will write another multichapter arc, mostly likely focusing on Homura. There are certain things I would like to accomplish in terms of her relationship with Kyouko.

After the universe is a bit more established, well...I _miiiiiiight_ move into a real direct sequel to Silent Melody. But no promises. Like, seriously. It's literally just a thought baby at this point.

Anyways, thanks for reading!

~Banshee


	9. How to kill Thanatos

Chapter 9: How to kill Thanatos

Though she knew she didn't act like it, Kyouko was actually the deep thinker type.

She was walking home from the grocery store one weekend, a small clump of plastic bags hanging from the ends of her fingers. It sort of reminded her of her older days when she had still been out on the streets, when she would have stolen the sweets of her choice from a convenience store or jacked it from some unfortunate passerby if fortune allowed it. She didn't do stuff like that anymore, of course, as the past couple years had matured her past that, not to mention that Homura would never approve.

The more she thought about it, she doubted any of the few street rats she had associated with back then would recognize her immediately anymore. She had started dressing better, for one, though this was mostly upon Homura's insistence. It wasn't like Kyouko hated dressing well or 'looking nice.' It just took more effort than it was worth. But beyond that, she had taken up the habit of cutting her hair occasionally, and though it was still long it wasn't the waist length mane it had been in the past. She didn't always put it up in a ponytail, either.

If anything, she didn't appear as threatening as she used to, though this didn't really bother her. She could still hand out an ass kicking to mostly anyone who decided to pick a fight with her.

Swinging the plastic bags on her fingers as she walked, Kyouko hummed as she looked forward to eating all the sweets she had bought. She had inadvertently ended up getting way more candy than Homura would have wanted her to, but the time traveler should have been aware of the risk that came with sending the redhead shopping without supervision. Besides, she knew that when it really came down to it Homura could never resist her.

Deciding to hell with patience, she dug out a small box of Pocky and began chewing on one right there, before making a turn around the next corner.

Something caught the corner of her eye, and she felt herself stopping to look.

A small knot of people was gathered around the edge of the sidewalk, staring down at something on the road, their feet and bodies hiding what it was. Frowning, Kyouko turned and walked up to the onlookers, wondering what was going on. They were also whispering and murmuring to each other, shifting nervously as if unsure of what to do.

She elbowed her way to the front, though no one seemed particularly insistent on staying where they were.

When she finally got to the edge of the sidewalk, she understood why.

Roadkill. A dead dog was splayed across the tarmac a few feet from the gutter, its entire body a mess of bones and entrails. It was immediately obvious that the animal was the victim of a speeding vehicle, from the way the center of its spine depressed where the tire had crushed it, the way its blood had sprayed around its corpse. It was a sorry sight, to be sure.

Kyouko continued to gnaw on her Pocky, taking in the view. It was disgusting, no doubt, and she definitely felt sorry for it, but it didn't elicit any visceral response from her. She had seen worse at a closer proximity.

The people huddled behind her continued to murmurer amongst one another, debating whether they should do something, whether they should move the dog's body off the street. It was awfully close to oncoming traffic, after all. There was no point in letting it get run over again. Kyouko tried to ignore them. She knew none of them were actually going to do it. Ordinary people were all talk.

Still, she thought, it was sad that the dog had to go out like that. The animal had probably had plans for the day. Food to eat. Cats to chase. Maybe even puppies to take care of. She would be pretty pissed if her entire life had to end just because one asshole in a car wasn't thought enough to swerve out of the way.

Well, not that a car would be enough to kill her, but still. The more she thought about it, the more unfair it seemed that the animal had to die. It didn't even get to die for a good reason. If that was her mangled corpse sitting out there on the road, would Homura just pass by without doing anything?

That particular thought motivated her, and she swallowed the last of her Pocky before dusting her hands off.

She could feel the people behind her staring as she stepped out onto the street, keeping her hands jammed in her pockets. She didn't why they were looking at her like that. She was just doing what they had suggested earlier. Was she just strange because she had the ability to act?

Squatting before the dog's body, she scooped it up in her arms, standing up so that she could cradle it gently against her chest. It really had been hit hard; she could see inside the animal's carcass, and she was getting blood all over her shirt. But luckily nothing was actually falling out of the animal, and she turned back to the sidewalk a moment later, parting the onlookers standing there like the Red Sea.

As she walked away from them, she wondered why they had even stopped to look in the first place, if they weren't going to do anything. And then stare at her for actually acting, to boot. Were they just struck by an unapologetic display of death? Were they thinking the same thing she would have thought, which was shit, I'm gonna die one day too? Maybe that wasn't their literal thought. But it was probably some part of it.

In a way she couldn't really blame them. Death was fucking scary. The thought that everything, the ability to see, to hear or move or love, was merely temporary was undoubtedly terrifying. One day everything you took for granted was going to go black, and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it.

There was a park near the place where the dog had died, and she reached it a few minutes later. Ignoring the playground scattered with a few stray kids, she walked to the largest tree in the area and set the animal's body down, before twisting the ring on her finger.

A smaller version of her spear extended from the piece of jewelry, and with it she began to dig. The kids on the playground were still there, but what were they going to do? Call the cops because some chick had a magical ring that could spit out a super sharp shovel?

She kept digging until she had made a big enough hole to fit the dog in. Dismissing her spear, she picked it up and set it down in its new grave, taking the time to position it so that it looked like it was just sleeping. After giving its head a brief pat, she began filling the hole back in, until there was just a pile of upturned earth sitting in front of her.

Then she sat there on the grass, staring at the grave.

She wondered why she cared so much. It was just a dog. She had never even had a pet before. Animals probably got run over every damn day in Mitakihara. In the grand scheme of things it didn't really matter. She wasn't in a particularly bad mood today either. If anything she had been looking forward to eating sweets.

Or maybe that was why. It was a moment where she had been so caught up in living life that she had forgotten about death. That was how most people went from day to day, probably. Otherwise they'd all go completely insane. Thinking about the fact that you were definitely going to die one day would probably make her more than a little bonkers.

Sighing, she dusted her hands off again and stood up. Her work was done; there was no point in hanging around here.

Kyouko was about to leave when she noticed the kids staring at her.

They were standing still beneath the monkey bars, their wide irises fixed on her form. Only then did it occur to her that her entire front was stained red by the dog's blood, and her hands were similarly soiled. Shit, to them it probably looked like she was the one who killed it.

Even without that thought, she probably still looked like hell. Covered in blood with a weird look in her eye. Anyone would fear her instinctively. Why though? Because it was blood? Because bleeding meant death?

Turning away from the kids, she left the park.

* * *

It occurred to her on the way home that she existed between two planes.

The first plane was, obviously, the one of mortals. Ordinary humans. People. Whatever. Though Kyouko considered herself to be largely human in many aspects, she also knew that a scientist would never officially classify her as a 'homo sapien.' She was something other than human. Whether she was _more_ than human or _less_ was another question entirely.

The second plane, then, was the one of gods. Take any god you like. The ones people still believed in or the ones no one worshiped anymore, it didn't matter. Maybe if she had been born a thousand years ago she would have seemed like a god to normal humans. A spear wielding, flame haired maniac with superhuman endurance and a ravenous appetite. Yeah, she probably would've had a couple shrines here and there.

People like her existed between these two worlds. They were like gods but mortal. The most important difference between a man and a god was mortality. Humans were transient while gods were forever.

So what did death mean, to the puella magi?

Then she remembered, quite suddenly during her bus ride home, that there was _another_ plane, one that existed between men and gods; it was the plane of humans who had _become_ gods, though at this point she was only aware of one.

Madoka Kaname.

Throughout her years as a magical girl, she had heard countless snatches about the mysterious Goddess, most of them from Homura, but she had never heard the entire story. All Kyouko knew was that Madoka _probably_ existed, and that she offered salvation to magical girls, which to her felt more than a little too convenient to be true.

Could Madoka die?

Her brain was rattled when the bus hit a rough spot, and she swayed gently in place, her arm hanging from a handle attached to the roof.

There was an old man sitting near the front of the bus. The first thing she noticed about him was just how incredibly ancient he looked. His bald head was so wrinkled it looked like a desert from far above, its sands rippled by the wind. He was bent over with age, and his hands shook passively even when they weren't doing anything, like his body was struggling immensely with the singular burden of life.

That old man was going to die one day too. Sooner than later, no less. Was he afraid of his imminent death? She had no way of knowing. She had never been old. She had never known anyone old intimately enough to ask. Would she feel fear if she ever reached that age? She wasn't sure. After all, she wasn't even sure of magical girls were mortal.

 _This is so stupid,_ she thought, closing her eyes again. There was no point in her thinking about this so much. She was never going to find an answer. Where had this even come from, anyway? Was it because of that dog?

Or maybe it went back further than that. Maybe it went back to the fact that she was going to church again, even though she didn't really believe in a god anymore. Maybe she was trying to understand her place, _their_ place, in the universe. Puella magi had originally been created to destroy demons and combat entropy. If they weren't doing that, for what reason were they supposed to exist?

The bus stopped near her apartment, and she got off after letting the old man go first.

Maybe it was time for her to hear the story from its source.

* * *

Homura was on the second floor balcony when Kyouko got home, which was where the time traveler usually was. The girl was working intently on something, and didn't seem to notice her lover approaching from behind.

But of course, it was impossible to sneak up on Homura.

"Welcome back," the girl murmured, not taking her eyes off the task at hand. She was making one of those models of a toy robot, the ones that had like a million pieces and required actually crazy glue to put together properly. It seemed like a ridiculously menial and time consuming hobby to her, but Homura enjoyed things that required intense concentration.

"Hey," Kyouko grunted, sliding the screen door shut behind her. She lingered by the table Homura was working on, not sure of what to say, fidgeting in place.

Her lover's eyes flitted briefly in her direction. "Did you get the groceries?"

Kyouko blinked, then realized she had left them on the sidewalk before she picked up the dog. Pressing her forehead against the railing and cursing, she said, "Uh…no. I sort of forgot."

Homura frowned at that, using a tiny brush to dab glue on an even tinier piece of plastic. "What do you mean you forgot? Isn't that the whole reason why you went out?"

The redhead didn't respond, instead pacing back and forth, obviously restless.

Homura was growing impatient with this strange behavior. Putting down her brush, she turned and said, "Kyouko-"

"I want to hear the story," Kyouko said, suddenly interrupting her. She had tossed her bloodstained shirt in the wash before coming up here, and was in nothing but a tank top. She was shivering in the April chill.

Homura paused. "What story?"

"The story you promised you would tell me. You know what I mean." the redhead walked over and put her hands on the table. "The one about Madoka Kaname. The one about the Goddess."

Homura gazed back at the girl for a moment, then pursed her lips and leaned back in her chair. "What brought this on?"

Kyouko bit her lip. "Nothing, really. I was just wondering."

"Mmm. I don't believe you."

The redhead hung her head in defeat. She should have known. Homura knew her too well. Grabbing the second chair, she took a seat across from her lover, wringing her fingers thoughtfully.

"I don't know. I've just been thinking a lot lately, you know?" she said, sighing. "I guess that's what happens when you don't have demons to kill. You start getting weird thoughts in your head. You start thinking about stupid shit."

Homura just frowned at her, slipping her glasses off her face, which she had been using to work on the robot. "What are you talking about, Kyouko? Did something happen?"

"Well, there was this dog. Roadkill. And then this old guy on the bus." When Homura just blinked at her, the redhead scratched aggressively at her head and grunted. "Never mind that. I've just been…trying to figure out our _place_ in this life, you know? Like, what's the end game for people like us? Where do we end up? What does death _mean_ to us?"

Homura watched her for a moment, then sighed softly. "Okay, I'll tell you," she said. "It isn't something I like to remember, but you have every right to know. But I'll have to warn you that it isn't a nice story by any means. Some of the things I tell you might not make you very happy."

Kyouko clenched her fingers.

"That's fine."

* * *

Some minutes later, Kyouko blinked, only to realize that a tear had fallen from her eye.

Homura cast her a sidelong glance, smiling blandly when she saw the redhead crying. She had just finished the main brunt of her story, explaining why multiple timelines had existed, explaining the reason why she had to save Madoka, and the endless cycles of suffering she had endured to meet that end.

"I…" Kyouko said, but she didn't know why. She wiped absentmindedly at her eyes, still trying to wrap her head around what she had just heard. "I…oh my god, Homura. To think that you actually went through all that…I can't…"

The time traveler just smiled again, reaching over to take the other girl's hand. "It's fine. It was a long time ago."

"That doesn't matter!" Kyouko snapped, before checking herself. But still, she couldn't believe it. It was such an unbelievable amount of pain that Homura had shouldered for countless repetitions. She didn't even care that Homura just told her that there really was a Goddess, or that there had been multiple timelines where she had died.

She had always known that Homura was strong. But there was always sort of mystery as to where that strength had come from. Now Kyouko understood. She understood, and it hurt so much to think that Homura had felt such despair in her life.

Leaving her seat, she yanked Homura out of her own chair and pulled her into a tight hug.

Homura just laughed softly, hands coming up to grasp her lover's waist. "Why are you the one crying? It's just a story, Kyouko. In this universe, none of it ever even happened."

"Shut up. You _know_ it happened, _"_ Kyouko growled, still crying a little bit. She might be weeping over something that was already said and done, but she didn't care. People cried over gravestones all the time, and there was nothing they could do about _that._ "I can't believe you could just carry that around for this long without telling anyone."

Homura smiled and laid her head on Kyouko's chest. "It wasn't that hard. I knew She was watching, always. So I was never alone. And I had you. That was more than enough for me."

They stayed like that for a minute, swaying gently back and forth. A sensitive Kyouko wasn't so bad either. Homura loved that she could adore multiple sides of the redhead.

"And as for what you asked earlier…" she continued, rubbing small circles into Kyouko's back, "There _is_ an afterlife. Madoka's creed is to save all magical girls from ultimate despair. She is the Law of the Cycle. You can trust her, Kyouko."

"But what sort of afterlife is it?" the redhead asked, resting her chin on Homura's head. "If we both go there, will we be able to see each other? Or are we just going to be suspended in some sort of limbo?"

Homura's fingers paused briefly on Kyouko's back before continuing. "Well, I'm actually not so sure about that," she admitted. "I don't know the specifics."

"If we aren't killed by despair, will magical girls live forever?" the redhead wondered aloud. "Will we ever die? Do our bodies age?"

Homura sighed against her. "I don't know, Kyouko."

"I know. I'm sorry." the redhead pursed her lips. "I don't expect you to know. It's just…I don't want to die before I've done everything I can with this life. Magical girls are the epitome of desire and regret. I don't want to add to that truth. And sometimes, I feel so out of place. I don't want to leave you alone, either."

Homura slipped away from her, turning to look out at Mitakihara. "Unfortunately, Kyouko, no amount of life is ever going to be enough," she pointed out. "No one ever reaches a point in their existence where they decide they've lived for long enough, and are completely fine with dying on the spot. It's natural instinct to want to live. The benefits of that are obvious, of course, but it comes with the side effect of giving us a morbid fear of death."

She paused for a moment, as if considering the validity of her next words.

"And if it gives you any measure of comfort, our souls are eternally linked now. So if one of us passes on, the other is likely to follow soon enough."

Kyouko had never thought about that before. But it made sense. If their life force was synonymous, it should be impossible for one of them to live without the other. It was poetic, in a sense. And a great relief, strangely enough.

Homura leaned back against the railing, pushing her elbows up onto the metal. She regarded Kyouko lovingly, in a way that was only possible in life.

"If you ask me, being afraid of death means you've got something special in life that you're afraid of losing. And that's a good thing. It means you're living your life properly. When we were hunting demons, it didn't really matter to us whether we lived or died, did it?" she said. "So don't worry about it too much, Kyouko. We're just afraid of death because we don't understand it. And at least we know there is an afterlife. Right now, I'm here. Right now, _we're_ here. And I'd rather be caught up in living life than obsessed with fearing death."

Kyouko thought back to what she had experienced earlier, the jarring feeling of seeing the dead dog when she had been thinking about nothing but her sweets. In a way it was where two extremes had met. The intoxication of life and the inevitability of death.

"If you think about it, death is the natural state of life," Homura pointed out. "Our existence, the fact that we're breathing right now, is on its own a struggle. Death is equilibrium, and so it is inevitable. But that's what makes living special."

Kyouko found herself smiling. "Yeah, I guess."

Homura sneered. "You guess? Is that all I get for my philosophical musings?"

"Why, did you have something else in mind?" Kyouko asked, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

Homura just rolled her eyes. "Does your mind only have two tracks?"

"Which tracks do you mean, exactly?"

"Food and sex, namely."

"I can live with that," Kyouko murmured, before tugging Homura back inside, to their shared bed.

She really could.

* * *

A/N

I don't really know where I was going with this. Just some random musings that came out, since I mostly just started writing this chapter without any plans in mind. I hope it was an interest read, nonetheless.

I might update again within the next few days.

Also, as a side note, thanks for the positive reviews on Mami and Kiku's arc! I happy some people enjoyed the closure on their story. They'll appear sporadically in this story from now on. (Maybe even a "first time" one shot?)

Thanks for reading!

~Banshee


	10. Homura learns how to swim

Chapter 10: Homura learns how to swim

Homura had always known that Kyouko was terribly spontaneous, but this was getting a little out of hand.

"Kyouko, just let it go. Let's go home," the time traveler sighed, pushing a hand through her hair.

"No. I've always wanted to try this!" the redhead insisted from above her, where she was busy trying to scale a chain linked fence.

Homura showed her teeth and grunted, looking up to glare at her lover. "You have taken down all powerful demons, lived for years on the streets, and have been blessed with unparalleled longevity, but the number one thing on your bucket list is to go _skinny dipping?_ "

"Oh, come on, Homura. I know you want to try it too."

"We both know that isn't true."

Homura really didn't know how Kyouko's neural circuits processed information. They had been walking home from a movie when they had passed by the local high school, the one from which they had graduated a while back. It was then that Kyouko had been seized by the sudden desire to sneak into the school pool, a need that Homura absolutely could not comprehend, but of course she had allowed herself to get dragged along anyway.

"And why are you climbing over the fence, anyway?" Homura criticized, crossing her arms. "You could just transform and jump over."

Kyouko snorted from above her as if this were a ridiculous suggestion. "Climbing is part of the experience, obviously. It wouldn't feel like breaking in if I made it that easy."

"Uh huh," Homura said, more than a little dubiously. Her tone made the redhead stop climbing and look down at her, a pleading look on her face.

"You really aren't going to come with me?"

"I'm more than happy to watch you through the fence."

"Well, that just won't do," Kyouko sighed, before reaching down and grabbing Homura's bag with one hand.

"Wh-hey!" Homura snapped, trying to snatch the bag back, but Kyouko just cackled and monkeyed her way up the rest of the fence, jumping over the top a second later. She landed on the other side in a single jump, her enhanced body making the fall harmless. "Give that back!"

The redhead grinned and dangled her bag in front of her face. "You'll have to come in here if you want it."

"Why, you-" she tried to lunged through the fence and grab her bag, but of course that didn't work. Kyouko laughed and danced away from the fence and towards the edge of the pool, dropping the bag at the edge.

"Oh come _on,_ Homura. Don't be so uptight. Let's have a little fun!"

Homura had no intentions of the sort, but she _did_ want her bag back, and she could already tell Kyouko fully intended to keep it until the time travel obliged her. Grumbling a few choice curses she had learned from the redhead herself, she pushed her sleeves back and put her hands on the chain linked fence, beginning the long climb to the top. She was not in the right shoes for this, Goddess help her. Or the right mood, now that she thought about it.

The lights surrounding the pool were still on at this hour, which Homura found strange; maybe the janitor had forgotten to turn them off, or something. There were lights set into the walls of the pool beneath water level as well, giving the water an ethereal appearance, like it was glowing amiably. It looked like an adventurous heart, which was exactly the thing that rested inside her lover's chest.

When she dropped down to the other side, Kyouko was already stripping down to her underwear, pulling her hoodie over her head before tossing it by the pool behind her. Homura watched bemusedly as she approached the water, bending down to pick up her bag.

Kyouko stretched luxuriously before entering the water, raising both arms above her head and flexing all the necessary muscles. Homura would admit that she spent a few moments examining the girl's form; she looked almost sculpted when bathed by the pool's light like that, and the fact that she had tasted nearly every inch of the redhead's skin made the sight even easier on the eyes.

A moment later Kyouko leapt forward into the water with a loud whoop, entering with a big splash. Homura stepped back just in time to avoid getting soaked, checking to make sure no one had heard her girlfriend's exclamation.

The girl in question emerged from beneath the water, tossing her drenched hair out of her eyes. She was still in her underwear, despite her initial insistence that they would be skinny dipping. "Come on, Homura. The water's fine!" she called out to her, gesturing suggestively in her direction.

Homura couldn't help rolling her eyes in exasperation. Breaking into a school at night, using the pool without permission; it was all so _teenagerish._ Not that they weren't still teenagers, of course, but they certainly didn't live like they were. "I'm fine, Kyouko. You can have your fun. Besides, we both know I can't swim."

"Yeah, I know," Kyouko said, waving her arms languidly to stay afloat. "I was figuring I could teach you."

Homura went still, then frowned a moment later. "These are hardly ideal learning conditions."

Now it was Kyouko's turn to roll her eyes. "Please, Homura. You've got a pool and an excellent teacher. What else could you possibly need?"

Homura just stared at her, reluctance evident.

Kyouko had known her lover long enough by now to be able to interpret her various silences, and she knew what this one meant. Clucking her tongue, she turned away from Homura and breaststroked to the far end of the pool. "Fine, you killjoy. You can sit there and watch. Or just go home if you want. I don't care."

Homura snorted and turned around to do just that, but before she could start walking she started thinking.

Was she really a killjoy? She didn't want to think so, and for obvious reasons, but Kyouko called her that so often. It wasn't like there was no reason for her to be reluctant in this situation. Kyouko was the one doing stupid things without thinking them through.

Still, Homura knew she had to learn to live a little. She had never been the spontaneous type, whether you referred to her current or old, shy self. That was part of why she loved Kyouko; the girl always kept her moving, never stagnating. Maybe her lover was just trying to create a happy memory between them.

She thought about what Kyouko had asked her about a week ago, all those questions about death. They weren't going to be around forever. Life was transient, and thus beautiful.

Maybe she could indulge in some debauchery now and then.

Kyouko's ear's twitched when they picked up the sound of a bag being dropped, and she turned around to see Homura gingerly unbuttoning her coat.

The redhead's eyes went wide in disbelief. "No way. You're _actually_ coming in here?"

"Shut up. You're the one who had to get all pouty on me," Homura snapped. Her coat was off by now, and she grabbed the hem of her shirt before pulling it over her head, exposing her torso to the cool night air. She covered her chest instinctively, even though she knew they were probably the only ones around here. They were _outside_ , for crying out loud. This wasn't the same as being in their apartment.

Kyouko watched her undress with relish, which only doubled Homura's embarrassment. "I didn't know I was so irresistible."

"Well, you are," the shield user sighed, now fully undressed. She kicked her jeans off and left them stacked neatly by the pool, before walking over to where the shallow end was. Kyouko waded over to meet her, anticipation written all over her face.

Homura tested the water gingerly with a toe, still apprehensive. It was surprisingly warm, or maybe that was from the nervous heat flushing through her entire body at the moment. She wasn't so sure about going into the water in just her underwear. It was bound to feel at least a little uncomfortable. Not to mention that there was bound to be someone monitoring the premises if the lights were still on-

"Oh, just hurry up already," Kyouko sighed, grabbing Homura by the wrist and yanking her into the pool.

"Wahh!" the time traveler went face first into the water, entering with an impressive splash. Her long mane of hair was soaked instantly, and when she spluttered above the surface it was already heavy enough to drag her head backwards.

Kyouko was laughing loudly at her, but Homura was more concerned with the fact that the redhead had dragged them into the deep end of the pool. She began flailing helplessly in the water, splashing at it with her hands. Driven purely by instinct, she moved to latch onto the nearest solid object in the water, which just happened to be her girlfriend.

"Woah. Relax, would you?" the redhead grinned, arms looping around her waist to hold her up. "It's only six feet deep, you know?"

"You bastard. You know I'm short," Homura hissed, slapping her lover on the shoulder.

Kyouko just laughed again, as Homura wrapped her legs around the girl's waist for better purchase. "I said it's okay. I'm a very good swimmer."

Homura looked down to see that Kyouko was holding them both afloat with the strength of her legs alone, and had to admit that this was very true.

"Okay, so lessons begin now," Kyouko announced, before she slipped free of Homura's grasp.

"W-Woah, wait!" the time traveler exclaimed, grasping desperately at the girl's arm.

"Relax," the redhead chided. She took both of her lover's hands and started pulling her slowly through the water. "I've got you. Just practice paddling for now."

Homura bit her lip and tried to follow orders, kicking her bare feet through the water. To her it felt like she was just making big splashes, but Kyouko kept encouraging her, telling her she was doing just fine. She wasn't such a bad teacher after all. They made circles around the pool until she got used to the movement, after which Kyouko pulled them towards the edge of the water.

"Here, we can use these," she said, pointing to where a rack of paddle boards was sitting. She had Homura latch onto the edge before climbing out of the water, throwing one knee over for purchase. For a brief moment Homura had an absolutely shameless view of the girl's rear, and the fact that she failed to look away proved that Kyouko had turned her into a pervert.

Kyouko tossed a board into the water, and Homura managed to hop onto it without drowning herself, throwing both arms over the foamy rectangle. The redhead slipped back into the pool, and they both floated around in the water for a while, letting the currents have their way with them.

"So how did you learn to swim, Kyouko?" Homura asked, breaking the silence.

Kyouko snorted at the question. She was floating motionlessly on her back, staring up at the moon, which was full tonight. The weather was clear, and the satellite shown down on them like a lantern. "It wasn't anything romantic or special. My dad practically picked me up and threw me into the water. It was learn or die for me."

Homura blinked, then smiled. "Sounds like something a Sakura would do."

The redhead laughed at the memory, her eyes closing with mirth. "Yeah, I guess. You could say I learned from the best. My dad was a good guy, you see, but not exactly the best teacher in the world."

Homura was somewhat glad the man's daughter hadn't inherited that specific trait from him. It was a good thing Kyouko hadn't chosen to throw her into the water herself. She honestly would have died.

"Was your dad as spontaneous as you?" she asked softly, reaching over and taking her lover's hand.

Kyouko turned her head and smirked at her, and for a moment they were linked, floating together on the glowing water. "Nah. But I definitely got it from him."

"Mmm."

"How about you?" Homura looked up to find Kyouko looked expectantly at her. "What do you figure made you so uptight all the time?"

The time traveler frowned, flicking a drop of water at the girl. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's a little something called _my personality?_ "

Kyouko snorted shortly before going back to looking at the moon. "Yeah, I'm not saying that isn't part of it. But I feel like there's something else too. This turned out to be fun, didn't it?"

She gestured at the pool to accentuate her meaning, and Homura knew her girlfriend was right. If she had chosen to actually go home earlier she probably would have ended up regretting it.

"I don't know," she sighed at last. She scooped up some pool water in her hand and stared at it, letting it trickle out through the cracks in her fingers, the fingers that sometimes couldn't hold onto everything. "It's probably because of all those timelines I went through. All those repetitions…"

"What do you mean?" Kyouko asked, swimming over to her. She put her arms on the paddle board and rested her chin on top, so that they were now gazing at each other from opposite sides, using the board to drift languidly across the water.

Homura just smiled meaninglessly back, tracing a finger across the redhead's slick arm. "I told you the story last week. Going back to save you all, but failing every time because of some mistake I failed to foresee…it left no more room for error. I had to be perfect if I was going to have any chance of succeeding. I couldn't take too many risks. Maybe my habits from then are still ingrained, somehow, even after all this time. I was stuck there for a good while, you know. Repeating that same month."

Kyouko just gazed at her wordlessly, eyes round and expressive. She reached out and grasped Homura's hand, tickling the girl's palm with her fingers. "I'm so glad you made it out, in the end."

Homura smiled lovingly back, bringing their hands up and kissing her partner's knuckles. "Me too. But I still find it a little difficult to learn new things. I hope you understand."

The redhead caught her by the chin, forcing them to look each other in the eye. "Don't be afraid to try and change a little, Homura. Even with something as small as swimming. Because if you're ever in danger of drowning, I'll be there to save you. Always."

The shield user chuckled softly, nipping affectionately at Kyouko's finger on her chin. "You actually have once, already."

Kyouko grinned. "Exactly. You can count on me, okay? For anything. Well, unless it's the laundry. You'll have to handle that."

Homura scoffed. "Am I supposed to feel reassured by that?"

"You've got not choice but to," the redhead said, splashing her with water.

The time traveler coughed when it hit her face, flipping her hair out of her eyes. "Hey! You're gonna pay for that!"

"Gotta get me first!" Kyouko teased, sticking her tongue out at her.

They chased each other around the pool for a while, though Homura was decidedly at a disadvantage, since she was limited to using the paddle board to move around. Still, at the end of it all both girls were absolutely drenched, and the sound of their blissful laughter mixed together within the night air, like eternal matrimony, and the moon seemed to glow even brighter for it.

As Homura raised the paddle board to defend herself from another splash, she was glad to realize that she was having fun. It was just like that one night on the frozen lake at the heart of Mitakihara, years ago now, when she and Kyouko had skated across the ice together and fallen in love for the first time. The redhead had forced her out of her comfort zone then, too. It seemed like every time Kyouko forced Homura to run, she fell deeper in love with her.

Finally Homura ended the scuffle by catching Kyouko, or perhaps Kyouko simply allowed herself to be caught; it was hard to tell anymore. The raven haired girl grabbed the redhead by the shoulders, pressing her against the edge of the pool. They pressed flush against each other, until there was only a little water lapping in the space between their chests, and the heavy sound of labored breathing.

"When we go home, you're doing the laundry," Homura breathed, tilting her head and skimming her nose against her lover's.

Kyouko just smirked back at her, one hand coming up to tangle in Homura's wet locks, the other looping down to support her from below. "You'll have to make me."

"With pleasure," Homura purred, before pressing their lips together.

Their bodies melded together to form a union more perfect than the full moon shining above them. Homura closed her eyes and allowed herself to indulge in the sensation of her partner's body, the pleased sighs, the sound of the water lapping against their skin. She didn't care that they were outside anymore, or that they were in their underwear. All that mattered was that she and Kyouko were here, in this moment, together.

They broke apart for a brief moment, and this time their breathing was labored for different reasons.

"Y-You've gotten me all wet," Kyouko growled, dragging her teeth against Homura's neck.

The smaller girl laughed huskily at the double entendre, planting a kiss to her blood red hair. "Is that a problem?"

In response, Kyouko turned and pushed Homura up until she was sitting on the edge of the pool. Then she climbed out herself and pushed the time traveler down onto her back, crawling up the length of her lithe body.

"No," she whispered, before beginning to kiss her way down Homura's chest and stomach.

 _Oh, god,_ Homura thought excitedly, feeling her body already beginning to write beneath her lover's ministrations, and she knew in her heart that nothing was going to stop them from going through with this. It was so wrong, and so risky, but that somehow made it ten times more thrilling, and her core ached with the need to do this, like she had been waiting for it her whole life. A hand had snaked up to grasp her beneath her bra, and she reached down to fist her hands in Kyouko's hair as she descended ever lower, knowing full well that Homura wanted this as much as she did.

A hiss when questing fingers cupped her beneath her panties, and Homura found herself arching her hips against the attention, the redhead's name rising to her lips unbidden. Kyouko moaned as she began to work her, and their fingers twined together against the concrete as Homura thought about just how perfect this moment was-

Then a door at the other side of the pool was kicked open with a resounding crash, and suddenly a flashlight was being blared in their direction, following closely by a harsh barking voice.

"Hey! What the hell are you two kids doing here? The school's closed!"

"Whoops," Kyouko muttered, before abandoning Homura completely and sprinting back to their clothes.

"Wh…shit. Kyouko, wait!" Homura yelled, scrambling to her feet and running after the girl, who was busy yanking her hoodie back over her head.

"Come on, Homura. We gotta run!" the redhead said urgently. Behind her the security guard was clattering down the steps in their direction, yelling at them to stand still, but like hell they were actually going to do that.

Homura grabbed her coat and pulled it around her body, and then they were running for the fence with their things clutched in one hand, sprinting full force towards the chain linked barrier.

A moment later Kyouko partially transformed, leaping over the fence in a single bound, Homura quickly following suit. They landed on the grass at the other side with soft _thump,_ and then they were hightailing it across the street, totally ignoring the furious shouts of the security guard as he reached the fence a moment later, his voice chasing after them in the night.

This was fucking ridiculous. Homura didn't even have her shoes on, and they were both still soaked from their dip in the pool, hair wet and stringy and flying behind them as they ran. But a few moments later Kyouko began to laugh, and Homura started laughing with her, somehow unable to stop herself, the adrenaline of the experience pumping through her veins.

It was probably the dumbest thing she had done all week, and she had loved it.

* * *

A/N

Wasn't really going to update today, but this idea came up and I felt like I had to write it before I forgot it entirely (which happens entirely too often). Plus I remembered that I had made it so that Homura couldn't swim.

Updates for this story might come more sparsely now, since I've decided to undertake a rather large scale project for _Seraph of the End._ But I haven't really decided if I'm going through with the entire thing just yet. Who knows, maybe it'll fall through. (It probably will tbh).

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Please ignore any typos, as I typed this in one go at one in the morning.

Thanks for reading!

~Banshee


	11. Lazy sex

Smut ahead! Though the chapter title should make that rather obvious...

* * *

Chapter 11: Lazy sex

Kyouko woke to the feeling of a comfortable weight on her chest.

She had fallen asleep on the floor some hours ago, in front of the glass sliding door that led out onto the apartment balcony. The sun had been streaming through into the room, and she had fancied taking a nap on that one spot like a cat would. She would admit to enjoying the feeling of the sun on her skin as she stretched out languidly, and soon enough she had drifted off into sleep.

Even now, she could feel that the sun had warmed the wooden flooring beneath her, making it feel like she was laying on a bed of warmth, which in effect she was. It seeped through her flesh and liquified her bones, and the redhead found herself quite unable to move, as she utterly lacked the desire too.

Besides, she was currently serving as someone else's pillow.

Looking down her body, she looked at Homura as she dozed, head resting on the redhead's chest. The smaller girl was fast asleep, breathing out softly as she rested, still in a skirt and button up shirt from work. It appeared that Homura had come home from her shift and fallen asleep on Kyouko without bothering to change. Well, not that she really minded.

Letting her head fall back to the floor, Kyouko put a hand on Homura's hair and began stroking it absentmindedly, closing her eyes. The raven haired girl didn't say anything, though she did snuggle a little closer to her lover.

It was a hot, bright day outside; the sun brushed against Kyouko's eyelids and made them throb pleasantly, and she could see the shade of red through the skin, like a reassuring reminder that the sun was there. As she mused about that, her hand came to a standstill, eventually slipping back to her side.

Homura reached out and grabbed Kyouko's wrist, lifting it and putting her hand back on her head.

Kyouko smiled to herself, eyes still closed, the half laugh making her chest rumble a bit. "So you were awake."

Homura purred, pressing her cheek against the redhead's collarbone. "I was just dozing."

"Mmm." Kyouko went back to stroking, and Homura went back to dozing. "Are we just going to lay here all day?"

The time traveler took to absentmindedly fiddling with the hem of Kyouko's shirt. "Did you have something in mind?"

The redhead pretended to think about it for a second, then suggested, "Well, we could have sex."

Homura snorted softly, reaching up and pinching her lover's cheek in reprimand. It had become a sort of inside joke between them. Sex was something that they ended up doing rather often, whether it was planned or inadvertent. There were simply some times when they could not keep away from each other, like there was some karmic string that bound them together.

Though to be honest, Kyouko might not have been entirely joking.

"I'm feeling a bit too languid for that at the moment," Homura sighed.

Kyouko hummed in agreement and looked back up at the ceiling. The sun was immobilizing; it sapped at her desire to do anything, even touching Homura. Well, that was fine. Lazy days were okay too.

"Why were you even sleeping here in the first place?" Homura asked, pulling herself level with Kyouko's face.

The redhead blinked, and they bumped noses. "I was taking a catnap."

Homura smiled at her, their eyes an inch apart. "I always knew you were a kitten at heart."

"A kitten with sharp claws."

"Mmm. Well…" Homura said softly, tilting her head just slightly, "I don't mind a little pain."

It was a slow kiss, steady, deliberate, genuine. The embrace was not particularly deep or aggressive, quite the opposite, but Kyouko found herself lost in the softness of the girl's lips, the comforting smoothness of Homura's hair as she reached up to stroke it, holding her in place for just a little longer.

When they separated it was so that Kyouko could yawn widely in Homura's face, her jaws parting to let the excess air out.

Homura just frowned slightly. "How rude of you."

"Sorry," Kyouko apologized, yawning again. "I'm just so tired."

"Too tired to have sex?" Homura asked in mock surprise. Kyouko just grunted.

The time traveler went back to kissing her then, in that same slow, purposeful manner. Their lips would just barely slip between each other, tongue hardly peeking out past her teeth, taking little gentle swipes at the other's flesh. Kyouko kept her own mouth loose, allowing Homura to dictate their course, too loose to take the lead.

Eventually, however, she figured she ought to make a bit of an effort. If Homura wanted sex, she was more than willing to indulge the girl, even if she didn't particularly feel like moving. Her hands were just beginning to inch towards the time traveler's shirt when they were stopped.

"No, it's okay," Homura said softly, between kisses. "You lay back. I'll do everything this time."

 _You're the best girlfriend ever,_ Kyouko thought, before letting her body go limp with a relieved groan. She heard Homura giggle softly for a moment, and wondering if she had said it telepathically by accident. Or maybe Homura had simply read her mind. Things like that tended to happen when they were sharing a soul.

Now in control, Homura left Kyouko's lips, instead peppering kisses across the rest of her face, her forehead, her cheeks, her chin. Graceful hands came up to caress thick, red hair, nails scratching at Kyouko's scalp and sending tingles down her spine. She kept doing that, slowly massaging the redhead's hair, until her random wandering kisses reached the ears.

She blew gently on the girl's ear, and was pleased to see goosebumps rise on Kyouko's skin. Taking the top of the lobe between her teeth, she tugged on it gently, slowly nibbling her way down to the lower lobe. Her hands kept running through Kyouko's hair the entire time, even coming down to squeeze lovingly at the other ear, in a nomadic display of love.

Finally, she released the girl's flesh and moaned as softly as she could into Kyouko's ear, so quietly that the other girl barely heard it, but her fingers curled in on themselves nonetheless.

 _Oh._ Kyouko tilted her head back just slightly, eyes closed and fluttering, as Homura administered her particular brand of sexual expertise on the subject she knew best, that being her. There was just something about the sun pooling all around them, the slowness of Homura's actions, everything planned and meticulous and so, so soft, yet she was as aroused as she had been during their wildest nights together.

Homura drew Kyouko's ear lobe into her mouth, releasing it every now and then to continue releasing those torturous moans, the ones that had no apparent cause. It wasn't as if Homura was getting anything out of doing this. It gave Kyouko the wild idea that perhaps the girl was enjoying this, that she derived pleasure from the mere act of pleasuring her lover. It was an unlikely revelation, but the thought alone was enough to make her lips go dry.

"I love you," Homura whispered, as her hands left the girl's hair and descended further down, stroking Kyouko's neck and feeling her pulse. "I adore you."

Kyouko bit her lip, feeling her heart clench almost painfully at those words, the ones she rarely got to hear, since it wasn't something Homura said lightly, and almost never during sex. Somehow it made the entire experience feel doubly better. This was something special. It wasn't just the meeting of two wanting bodies. It was the melding of souls, of destinies.

Homura's fingers found the buttons of Kyouko's shirt and began undoing them, not fumbling like they would have when they were in a hurry, or when they simply could not wait to have each other. Each button popped open smoothly and without fail.

Kyouko was in a daze. It was the summer heat. It was Homura's heat. It was both. When she looked down the girl already had the top of her torso exposed, her bra showing through the opening in the fabric.

Reaching down, Homura cupped the redhead's sex with one hand, feeling at her through her shorts. Kyouko found her back arching off the ground at the unexpected contact, a gasp flying out of her mouth unbidden. This allowed Homura to reach around and unhook the girl's bra in one swift motion, flicking it across the room a moment later.

Kyouko came back down, cheeks burning badly upon realizing how well she had just been played. That had to be one of the smoothest things she had even seen Homura do, and it had been done to _her._

Her sex was still throbbing with need, especially after Homura had touched her, but the time traveler did not indulge that spot again, instead unbuttoning the rest of the redhead's shirt.

"Homura," Kyouko groaned at last, no longer able to discipline herself.

"Yes, love?" Homura asked, looking up from the girl's stomach.

"I…" the redhead thought for a second, then realized she had nothing to say. "Never mind. Just…keeping going. Please."

"So impatient." Homura nuzzled her between her breasts, then planted a kiss there. "We have all day, love…"

By comparison, Homura's take on sex was much gentler than her partner's. Sometimes it was easy for Kyouko to forget this, as she usually took the lead. And Homura certainly didn't mind it rough, she knew that for sure. Sometimes the smaller girl would even beg for it. But this…this was okay too. It was more delicate. It was more reverent. It felt real.

Kyouko had a small tattoo on the skin above her hip bone, a small inscription that read _Love is timeless._ Homura drew aimless lines around that tattoo, which she secretly liked a lot, even if she had told Kyouko not to get it. She was everywhere, sometimes kissing her way down the redhead's navel, sometimes glancing her teeth against the girl's hipbone, or reaching up to caress her breasts.

It was incredibly drawn out, to the point that Kyouko was actually caught off guard when Homura suddenly dipped even lower, taking the hem of the redhead's shorts in her teeth and tugging impatiently.

 _Holy shit,_ Kyouko thought hazily, raising her hips in compliance. Homura tugged her pants off, leaving them somewhere around the ankle, and wasted no time in dipping her tongue inside the redhead's core.

"Ah…" Kyouko sighed at the sensation of Homura's tongue pressing against her. One hand snaked down and grabbed hold of the girl's hair, guiding her just where Kyouko wanted her.

The other hand was pressed flat against the warm floor, absorbing it heat. Homura's free hand came up to meet hers, and then their fingers were melding together as the time traveler pleasured her, undoing the redhead was surprising efficiency.

"Nnn…ahn!" another moan was extracted from Kyouko's throat, coming out at a much higher pitch than usual. It was incredibly embarrassing, but at the moment she could hardly bring herself to care. She was losing herself fast, but Homura's movements were still so _slow_. The girl's soft tongue was swiping gently at her folds, never focusing on just a single area, and she was still making those fucking _moans_ , small adorable gasps against Kyouko's pussy that made it seem like she was also touching herself in the process, but the redhead knew this wasn't true because she could see both of her hands. But the shield user kept making those sounds regardless, and she was even saying ridiculous things now, like "you're gorgeous" and "you taste so good."

It was delicate and fragile, two things that were usually totally lost on her, but hell if Kyouko wasn't enjoying herself now. At last Homura swept her tongue up and pressed it against the girl's clit, which she had been ignoring until now. Long fingers replaced the space the tongue had filled, and suddenly Kyouko became aware of just how close she was, her response delayed by the paralyzing summer heat.

Both of Kyouko's hands were in Homura's hair now. The time traveler was following a certain pattern with her ministrations, and the redhead found herself matching her hips to those movements, desperate to keep up with her. Homura had her on an absolute leash now; Kyouko was completely at her mercy.

"You're whimpering," Homura murmured, her fingers going still.

Kyouko chomped down on her lower lip, eyes burning with a thin film of tears. It had just occurred to her that Homura had been building her up this entire time, slowly, surely, and that she had been completely taken along for the ride. She had never stood a chance.

At last Homura went back to servicing her, and there was more purpose to her movements this time. Kyouko felt her head tilting back as she writhed on the warm wooden floor, and her voice continued to pitch until it cracked completely, and through the wild fog of her mind she thought she heard Homura laugh in amusement.

A hand came up to tug at Kyouko's nipple encouragingly, and then the redhead couldn't take it anymore, and she allowed Homura to claim victory.

" _Fuck._ I-I love you," she whimpered, and then she was coming hard, harder than she had in a long time, which made no sense because Homura had been nothing but gentle.

Homura rode through it with her, then simply watched as Kyouko went limp on the floor before her, utterly exhausted. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly, her breasts shaking gently, as if enticing her.

Smirking, the time traveler propped herself up on both elbows. "That's the first time you've said that during sex."

Kyouko flushed deeply. She knew it had been unlike her, getting all sentimental, but she had felt it in that moment and had wanted to say it. "You said it too."

"Mmm." Homura leaned back down and began licking her lover clean, making her gasp. "But I wasn't caught in the throes of orgasm."

"That…" the redhead lifted her head and glared at her. "That can be changed very easily."

"That so?" Homura smiled, arcing an eyebrow.

"Hell yeah." Kyouko's head hit the floor again. "But not right now. In like, half an hour. Then I'm coming for you."

Homura laughed and pulled herself up her lover's body, planting another soft kiss on her forehead.

"Lazy bum."

* * *

A/N

I was in the right mood to write smut, but I didn't really want to write something extreme either. I wanted something more reserved, so this is the product of that. I hope it was an enjoyable read.

On a different note, I just realized Madoka Magica turned five years old last week. I find it amazing that, five years after the conclusion of the show, people are still coming in and writing fics for this fandom; this community is far from dead. Not many shows hold that distinction, and I'm happy I write for one of them.

Next chapter will probably be about Seiyaku and Kanade, two OCs from the parent fic. Just fair warning.

Thanks for reading!

~Banshee


	12. God is Fickle (1)

Originally meant to be one chapter, but ended up being two. This is part one.

* * *

Chapter 12: God is Fickle

Kanade didn't believe God did everything for a reason.

For if that were the case, then surely she would actually be worth something to those around her. If there was a purpose behind the creation of every human, if every individual was meant to fulfill a certain part of a master plan, then surely she would be capable of doing _something_. Surely she wouldn't drift aimlessly from day to day. Surely she would have a clearer idea of what people wanted from her.

But this wasn't the case. So while she still believed God was a benevolent being, she didn't believe he was driven purely by necessity. She was not necessary herself, after all. An artist's thoughts lived in his work. She was just a doodle God had made in his spare time.

When she was six, both of her parents passed away. It came suddenly, like Death always did…swiftly and without compromise.

Her mother went first. Terminal leukemia, but Kanade had only known it at the time as 'the sickness.' To her six year old mind, it didn't matter what exactly the disease was. Watching her mother slowly waste away one the months was suffering in itself. What was the point of labelling that suffering?

Of course, being only six, she didn't exactly have a perfect grasp on the concept of Death. The two of them were not so well acquainted yet, though they would be. Her father encouraged her to visit her mother often in the hospital, and Kanade was more than happy to; she brought little homemade snacks to her mother's room after school every other day, and stayed there to talk to her for an hour or two whenever she could. Her father had told her that if Kanade did her best to be a good daughter, mommy would get better in no time.

Her mother was a complacent, understanding woman, and therefore never saw fit to tell her daughter that her efforts were pointless. The leukemia could choose to take her regardless of how many sugar cookies Kanade brought her. But instead she smiled and accepted the little gifts, and even though eating made her sick she forced herself to swallow the food anyway, if only to convince Kanade that things were going to be alright, that mommy was getting better.

Things continued that way for a good while, and six year old Kanade went on believing she was making a difference. Her mother cut off all her hair and started wearing a funny hat one day, but she said it was just to make laying in the bed easier. That made sense. Her mom was _such_ a smart woman.

"Here, mommy!" Kanade said one day, pressing something into the woman's hand.

"What's this?" she asked, looking down at the small present. It was a woolen head cap that had been embroidered with many little flowers and animal designs, though the sloppiness of the work betrayed the sewer's inexperience.

Kanade stacked her hands on her head and said, "For your head! Your hat right now is ugly. Pretty moms should wear pretty hats!"

Her mother just laughed and pulled off her cap, slipping the new one on top. "How does it look?"

"Great!"

Just then the door was pushed aside behind them, and the head doctor walked in with a stern expression on his face.

"Miss Shizuki, if you don't mind. A moment…" he said, glancing at Kanade.

Kanade noticed her mother's lips press into a thin line, the smile gone. "Of course. Kanade, go back to your father," she said, ushering her daughter away.

"But I just got here!"

"We'll see each other again. Now go."

* * *

After that day, she didn't get to see her mother as often. She was always out of her room for 'tests,' which Kanade couldn't understand. Wasn't her mom done with school? Why did she have to take tests? Sometimes her mother was in her room, but the doctors told her she was 'too sick' for visitors. Eventually Kanade grew scared of the heavy atmosphere that descended upon the doctors whenever she asked about her mother, and she stopped coming as often.

Her father changed as well. He had always been a cheerful man, but from that point a dark fog seemed to surround him. He didn't take Kanade out to the park anymore. He was always late picking her up from school. Sometimes he forgot to make dinner. He was always yelling at someone over the phone, and sometimes the man on the other end yelled back.

But she didn't say anything, as by this time she was barely seven, and was yet far from comprehending the confusing world of adults. Her parents had always been able to handle everything. They were her parents, after all! But now she hadn't seen her mother in two weeks, and her father was starting to lose his hair too, even though he wasn't sick like mommy was, and he didn't bother going to the barber's anymore.

Little things started disappearing from their house too. She didn't notice at first, until she opened up her mother's jewelry box. There were a pair of diamond earrings in there her mother had always promised would belong to Kanade one day.

"For when you get married," the woman had giggled, poking her in the stomach.

Eager to try them on and feeling lonely without her mother around, Kanade opened the jewelry box to find them gone.

She turned the box over and looked at it from every conceivable angle, but no. Gone. The diamond earrings, the ones that had their place in the future, were now gone.

Did that mean the future was going to leave too?

Her father just made an irritated grunt when she asked him about it.

"Daddy has to pay for mommy's medicine, honey," he sighed, holding his head in his hands. A half smoked cigarette was hanging limply from between two fingers, winnings itself out like a sick man. "Don't you want her to get better?"

 _Didn't you tell me she would if I was a good daughter?_ she thought, or at least the seven year old equivalent of it, but simply scrunched up her face and left the room.

That one incident stayed with her for the rest of the week, picking at the borders of her mind. Why _wasn't_ her mother getting better? People got sick all the time, and there was usually a period where they weren't well; Kanade knew this herself, having gotten ill before. But after a week or two kids in her class were usually right back to normal. It had been months since her mother got sick.

Why wasn't she getting better?

The question left her in a daze at school as well, taking her out of her usual outgoing self. The other elementary school kids in her class were always whispering and stealing glances at her from across the room. Kanade didn't know it at the time, but apparently the school faculty had failed to keep her mother's condition a secret. Stories like that tended to get around quickly. She was the one in the class who's mommy was sick and not getting better.

Was it because she wasn't really a good daughter?

The rest of the class might know about her little secret, but no one dared actually ask her about it. How was a seven year old kid supposed to ask about something like that? And Kanade, in her inherent naiveté, failed to notice.

That was, until Jun decided to open his big mouth.

Kanade hated Jun. He was a rough, rowdy boy in her class who sat in the far back row, and he was always talking during class. He was never paying attention to the lesson, and he always pushed the girls during soccer games. His face was always covered in tiny little bandages for equally small wounds, which he claimed were sustained from fighting middle school boys, but everyone secretly thought he probably fell into a patch of thickets instead.

The inconsiderate boy ran over to Kanade's desk and slammed his hands on top of it, his eyes wide open in surprise and fascinate.

"Hey, Kanade!" he said, obviously high off the effects of something he wasn't supposed to know.

"I heard your mom's gonna die!"

The pencil in Kanade's hand fell out of her grasp and hit the floor, as a pin drop silence enveloped the classroom.

Everyone was staring at her. Everyone's eyes were on her. They were crushing her with their gazes. Kanade seized the legs of her pants between her fingers and stared down at them, feeling her heart tear itself free of its veiny chains and commit suicide by jumping down into the deep pit of her stomach.

Finally Akari, one of her friends in the class, gritted her teeth and stepped forward, standing between Jun and Kanade beside the desk. "Why the heck would you say that, Jun? What's wrong with you?"

Jun just turned his nose up at her, crossing his arms. "Well, that's what my brother said is gonna happen. He says people with that kinda sickness never get better."

"I don't care! Honestly, you're so stupid!" Akari growled, stamping her foot. "Honestly, why don't you just-"

"How does your brother know that?" Kanade asked softly, but it was enough to cut Akari off. Everyone was looking at her once more.

Jun raised an eyebrow, somewhat off put by her muted response. "He takes hard science at high school. My brother's very smart."

"No, your brother's a big dummy!" Kanade screamed, leaping out of her seat so fast the chair was shot back somewhere behind her. Her knee came up and banged the bottom of the desk and sent that falling over too, very nearly coming down on top of Jun before he barely managed to jump out of the way in time. "My mom's not gonna die! You're wrong! He's wrong! I hate you!"

With that she picked up her pencil and hurled it at Jun, who held his hands up to block it. Then she ran out of the classroom, practically kicking the door open before disappearing down the hall.

Now everyone was staring at Jun instead, and he just glared daggers back at them.

"What?" he grunted, looking away. "I was just telling the truth."

The stress of the situation finally got to Akari, and she reached up to wipe tears away from her face.

"We know, Jun," she said shakily, covering her eyes with her arm. "We all know. But you were the only one who said it."

"And she's the only one who doesn't know."

* * *

Kanade's lungs were burning as she ran through the school, but she didn't care. She had to prove Jun wrong. She had to prove that he and his stupid older brother were both wrong. Her mother wasn't going to die. She had tried her best, so why would she? It wouldn't make any sense.

It was the middle of class, so no one was watching the front gate. All the teachers were inside. She ran through and headed straight for the nearest bus stop, hopping impatiently in place until a bus came for her. She hopped on and began riding it all the way to the hospital. She would ask her mother directly. Her mother wouldn't lie to her.

As the bus trundled along, it started to rain. Kanade watched a stray drop of water trickle down the side of the window, so slowly that it seemed to have turned to ice. She rooted silently for the drop of water, ushering it to reach the bottom of the window. But as the bus turned into the hospital a gust of wind swept through the street, and the rain drop was obliterated before her eyes.

The doors hissed open and she jumped out ahead of everybody else, not hearing the driver shout that she needed to pay, and instead sprinted through the front doors of the hospital. The nurses inside were very surprised to see her, considering she ought to be in school, but their faces grew grave again when she asked about her mother.

"Please," Kanade begged, hopping up and down. "I just need to ask her something really important."

One of the nurses sighed and took her hand. "Alright. We'll go up there and see if she's available. But no promises, okay?'

After a brief elevator trip the nurse spoke to the head doctor, who poked his head into her mother's room and murmured something. A brief exchange took place between them, but she only caught the tail end of it.

"Please, Shizuki-san. Your daughter needs her mother."

A silence. Then:

"Alright. Let her in."

The doctor stood aside, and for the first time in weeks, Kanade was allowed to see her mother.

The woman was very gaunt now. She looked skinny, skinnier than she was already, and her eyes were sunken into her head, like those skeletons her dad put outside the house on Halloween. Kanade liked Halloween, but she had never liked those skeletons. Now her mother was slowly becoming one.

She sat on the edge of the bed, and they simply regarded each other for a while. Kanade traced the damage the leukemia had down to her mother's face. Her mother traced a youth in her daughter's face that was fading fast.

Finally, if only to avoid hearing the maddening ticking of the clock on the wall, Kanade asked softly,

"Are you ever going to get better, mommy?"

Her mother smiled like Kanade knew she would, but she looked tired at the same time. "I don't know, honey."

She looked down at her thumbs. "Jun says you aren't."

"Jun? He said that?"

"He says…he says you're going to die." Saying that last word was enough to make tears spring to her adolescent face, and she looked away from her mother, rubbing at her eyes.

The woman just sighed and held her, as the clock reconquered the room once more.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Kanade," she said at last, stroking her daughter's pale green hair. "I don't know if I'm going to get better. I might. Or I might not. I can't say. But no matter which one actually happens, I want you to remember that this is no one's fault. None of this is anyone's wrongdoing. It isn't because of anything you did, or anything your father did, or even anything I did. This happened just because it happened. We can't prevent that. But we can hope. And we can try."

A few minutes later her mother grew drowsy, and the doctor made her leave. Kanade watched forlornly through the door until it closed on her, straining to keep eyes on her mother until her very last moment.

Right before the door closed, the smile on the woman's face disappeared.

* * *

One week later, her mother failed to get better.

There was a strange disconnect between knowing and understanding. Kanade knew what death was. She had seen it before, when Akari's old pet dog had passed away. She knew that once someone died, they were gone forever. But she had never really _known_ it at the same time. Never truly understood the feeling of having a metaphorical limb ripped out of her life.

Her mother was gone now, but she still walked around with the feeling that it was only temporary, that the woman had only gone somewhere on vacation and was coming back soon. She hated that feeling, but held on to it all the same, because it was better than admitting her mom was never coming back. God had taken her now. God had her in his grasp.

Whether it was for any good reason or not, she couldn't say.

The funeral was held on a overcast morning, but it didn't rain. Kanade almost wished it would. It would make more sense.

She stayed quiet through most of the proceedings, never once moving a muscle, never once making a sound. They followed the casket up a hill near the countryside and prepared to set it into its grave, into that shallow hole in the ground that might as well have been a pit straight down to hell.

She stayed quiet for all of that, but held onto that same feeling the entire time, the absurd notion that her mother was going to pop out of that casket and come back to them at any moment. She would be like one of those zombies in the scary movies, but at this point Kanade hardly would have cared. Zombie or not, she would love her mother unconditionally.

But that didn't happen, and the casket slowly began to descend into the earth, and the last of Kanade's illusion broke.

Before she knew it she was running across the grassy meadow towards the casket, screaming bloody murder, driven by the inexplicable urge to _do_ something, instead of sit back and watch her mother be lowered into the ground. She got halfway to the grave before her father grabbed her and held her back, and from there she watched the rest of it, tears spilling from her eyes, until her mother was dead and buried forever.

For all the trying in the world, there was nothing she could have done.

About a month later, strange men came to their house.

Her father flinched when a hard knock came from the door, and opened it only slightly, conversing tersely with whoever it was on the other side. Kanade looked on curiously, but ran away when they both began shouting, hiding under a table until it was over.

Finally she heard her father yell, "I'll pay you back! So leave me alone!" before slamming the door closed.

When he reentered the living room, he looked gaunt and underfed. His balding hair was a mess on his head, and his eyes were bloodshot from countless sleepless nights.

He looked just like her mom did the last time she ever saw her. It should have tipped her off right then, but once again she was too blind to see it.

Her father put a hand against the wall for support, letting his head hang from his shoulders, eyes screwed shut. Kanade crept out from beneath the table and approached him tentatively.

"Daddy?" she asked, softly.

"Say, Kanade," he asked her, suddenly. "Your mommy's with God now, isn't he?"

Frowning, she said, "…Yes, she is. Mommy's with God right now."

"Wouldn't it be great if we could go there and visit her? What do you think about that?"

She brightened up, eyebrows shooting towards the top of her head. "Really? We can do that?"

"Sure we can. Oh, but we can only go one at a time." her father turned away from the wall and smiled tiredly down at her, in a room that was now almost completely empty. Everything had been sold out of desperation. "So what do you say? Should daddy go find mommy and bring her back?"

"Yeah!" Kanade exclaimed, practically jumping at this point. She was beyond excited.

"Okay." the exhausted man pushed himself off the wall and began staggering towards his room. "Okay. I just need to call your grandma first, to let her know. Then I'm taking a bath."

He disappeared into his room then, and Kanade waited nervously outside, impatient to see her mother again. She knew her mother was right. If she tried, everything would turn out alright.

There was a muffled conversation beyond the door. That must be her grandmother. Finally her father seemed to shout, "N-No. You _have_ to take care of her," before hanging up. Maybe he was making sure she wouldn't be home alone while he was gone?

The door to his room was pushed open, and her father shuffled back out, holding something in his hand she couldn't see.

"I've called your grandma," he said, his voice toneless. "I'm going to take a bath now, then I'm leaving, okay?"

"Okay," Kanade said softly, watching as he walked over to the bathroom. Before he could open it, however, she called out to him again.

"Dad?"

He stopped, shoulders hunched. "Yes, honey?"

"I…" Kanade paused, biting her lip. "Mommy told me…that it isn't anyone's fault that she died. She said it's not my fault or her fault, or your fault. So I'm sure she won't be mad when you find her again. I'm sure she'll be happy to see you."

Though his face was hidden, she saw a ghost of a smile on the man's face, his last.

"I don't know, honey," he said. "Your mother just might hate me for this."

Then he disappeared inside the bathroom before she could say anything.

Just before he closed the door, she heard the distinct rattle of pills in a bottle.

* * *

Suicide with the assistance of blood thinners.

That was what the police report said, which for some reason she managed to catch a glance of. The words meant nothing to her at the time, since all she had known then was that now her dad was dead too. Just another string of words that would only make sense later, and merely served to make the experience sound more grim. 'Suicide.' 'Blood thinners.' 'Leukemia.' 'Therapy.'

The moment her father had closed the bathroom door behind him he had taken as many blood thinners as he could without knocking himself out, since there was no guarantee of his death that way. He then filled the bathtub to the brim, stripped naked, and climbed in, submerging himself completely.

After removing the blade from his shaving razor, he slashed both wrists and simply waited.

The hot water kept the wounds from closing too quickly, and the blood thinners allowed him to bleed out faster. The steam filling the room put him in a daze, as his heart steadily pumped the life out of him.

In half an hour he was dead.

The police came a half hour after that, and only because her grandmother grew worried after her son in law's cryptic phone call and sent them over. When the cops kicked the bathroom door down Kanade only caught a glimpse of what lay inside before her grandmother covered her eyes, but it was too late. One bloodied arm hanging out over the side of the tub, like that famous European painting of the French guy who was killed while taking a bath, except her dad wasn't French, and no one was going to remember how her father had died except her.

Disgusting, people whispered when they thought she couldn't hear. Disgraceful. How dare a widowed father leave behind his only caught and succumb to the cowardice of suicide. How dare he. But Kanade didn't care about what those people said. Because the whole time she could only think that all this could have been prevented, if she had simply chosen to do nothing, if she hadn't wanted to try so much.

If she hadn't visited her mother so often, maybe she would have had the time to recover.

Maybe if she hadn't left school, she wouldn't have had to see her mother's dying smile.

Maybe if she hadn't spoken to her dad that final day, he wouldn't have chosen to kill himself. Or maybe if she hadn't told him to go to heaven to find mom, he would still be alive.

She knew she wasn't to blame, but she still felt like the root cause.

It made sense, to her young mind.

Despite everything she did, her parents were still dead.

The less she tried to change fate, the better.

* * *

Kanade passed through the next seven years of her life in a trance.

She changed considerably during those seven years, but most of the change occurred within the first. As long as she lived in her hometown, she was always going to be the girl who had lost both her parents within the span of a month. She was always going to be the one people glanced at twice. The one who lived alone with that crazy old lady down the street.

The first thing she changed was her personality. She stopped talking to people. She stopped being outgoing. If people still wanted to talk to her, then fine. But she was never going to seek out another's attention again. The memory of her parents bore down on her with the weight of an anvil, and she grew nervous, jumpy, easily unnerved by the smallest things. Everything felt like the beginning of the end. If a friend missed school it probably meant they were dying. If the wood in the wall popped it meant the entire building was about to come down on her head. If someone gave her a weird look it was because they hated her.

If things were going to happen to her regardless of how she acted, she might as well protect what little was left of her soul. She withdrew into herself and built a wall between her and the rest of the world. She had tried putting herself out there before and she was no better off than a brick in the same situation.

Most people tried to understand her 'trauma' and gave her as much room as she wanted. But Kanade didn't think she was traumatized. She had simply learned. That there was no grand system, that there was no absolute reason for everything, that sometimes God acted on a whim. Sometimes people died for no reason. And others were born for no reason. Regardless of what she or anyone else did, senseless things were still going to happen.

What was the point in trying to interfere with that? It was a cruel, terrifying idea, and it was the world she lived in. A world like that was something she wanted no part in.

And so, within the very depths of her heart, she began to fear people.

* * *

The winter she turned ten, in her final year of elementary school, her class got a new transfer student for the term.

The girl in question paraded herself to the front of the room and introduced herself as Tachibana Seiyaku, saying the name with great pride. Some of the girls giggled while the boys laughed at her bravado, a couple of them even clapping. Seiyaku made a big show of bowing before the teacher sighed and told her to go to her seat. The new girl sauntered to her designated spot, receiving high fives as she went. She was already a part of the culture.

Kanade watched the entire spectacle from her seat in the back, quiet as always, merely observing. Tachibana-san was a strange one, certainly, but still no different from the rest. Perhaps the rules did not apply to the boyish girl with short blue hair, but there were hardly any rules to begin with.

Instead she went back to drawing absentmindedly on her desk, trying to blot out the rowdy sounds of the classroom. She wished they would all just stop talking so she could stop shrinking inside herself.

Her attempts were foiled, however, when Jun turned around in his seat.

Even after all these years, the idiot boy was still in the same class as her, like he had been made specifically to torment her. Of all the things God did for a specific reason, it had to be that. The boy leaned into her field of view and tapped his rolled up notebook against the desk.

"Hey, Kanade. Let me copy your homework."

They were far from friends, but he still insisted on using her given name, without regard to how she felt about it. Biting her lip painfully, she clenched her fists and stared at the desk, not daring to look up, praying Jun would simply give up and leave her alone.

Though of course, that wasn't what happened.

"Hey, I was talking to you," Jun snapped, rapping his notebook on her desk harder this time. "What's your problem? You're always like this. You feeling sick or something?"

She had stopped drawing by now, but she still didn't look up.

"Seriously, what's wrong with you?" Jun scoffed. "You've been like this ever since second grade. If you aren't going to talk to me at least hand over your notebook so I can-"

"Hey, what are you guys talking about?"

It was Seiyaku's voice, someone Kanade had discovered mere minutes ago, but for some reason she recognized it. She saw Jun turn towards the new girl through the corner of her eye, a brow raised haughtily.

"What's it to you? I was just asking to see her homework."

Kanade briefly glimpsed Seiyaku putting a hand on her hip. "Why do you need to see her homework?"

Everyone was staring at them. It was like that day in first grade all over again, when Jun had bounded over to declare her mother was going to die. Kanade screwed her eyes shut, trying to make the panic reflex that always rose up in her die down, as she waited for Seiyaku to break from the pressure like she had.

Jun snorted at the question. "Because I didn't do it, obviously."

"Why not?" Seiyaku asked innocently, crossing her arms. "Are you not smart enough or something?"

There was a collective gasp from the class at those words. As much as everyone hated Jun, they also knew it was unwise to insult him to his face. You were liable to get punched in the face that way, or even worse, he would run to his older brother and have _him_ rough you up a bit.

But Seiyaku, being the new girl, didn't know that. Or maybe she just didn't care.

Jun bared his teeth, putting a hand on his desk and rising up to his feet. "How about you say that again-"

"Jun!" the teacher barked from the front of the class, cutting through the tension. "Get back in your seat. Class is about to start."

The boy hissed quietly before begrudgingly sitting back down, but not before slapping Kanade's desk with his notebook again and making her flinch. The rest of the class whispered quietly amongst themselves as Seiyaku made her way to her own seat, the empty desk beside Kanade's.

The teacher picked up his chalk, and class began, but Kanade found herself simply staring at Seiyaku the entire time, wondering how she had handled that so well.

* * *

She tried to leave earlier that day, but Jun caught up to her nonetheless.

She should have known better than to try. Hadn't she already learned that her own efforts were meaningless?

"Kanade!" Jun's enraged voice caught up to her from behind just as she was leaving the shoe lockers, making her freeze in place. Turning slowly, she paled when she saw him stalking straight towards her, his rolled up notebook in once hand. It was covered in bright red pen marks.

Once he was within range he reared back and hurled the notebook at her, bouncing it off her head as she raised both arms in defense. Heart bouncing in her chest, Kanade tried to jump back but was too late, as Jun walked right up to her and seized her wrist.

"You big idiot! Yashiro-sensei gave me a zero on every homework assignment I didn't do!" his eyes were blazing as his fingers dug painfully into her wrist. "I'm going to fail the class now! It's all your fault!"

"I-It…it's not-" Kanade's tongue was rubber in her mouth. Her heart was pummeling into the inside of her ribcage so hard she thought it would drag her into the sky.

"Yes, it is your fault!" Jun snarled, yanking her back to him when she tried to pull away. "If you'd just let me see your notebook he wouldn't have known!"

Desperate to get away now, Kanade tried to step on Jun's shoes to distract him, but he ended up tripping her instead. The hand on her wrist disappeared just before he shoved her to the sand covered ground, and she landed hard on her back.

The boy loomed over her, then leaned down and seized her by the collar of her uniform, dragging her limp body off the ground.

"Just you wait," he hissed, breath in her face. "I'm gonna tell my brother about this, and then you-"

"Hey!"

Jun turned his face towards the new voice, just in time to take a fist square between the eyes.

She was like a superhero. A brilliant flash of blue, then beautiful freedom as Jun's heavy weight was pushed off her, the force of Seiyaku's punch sending him rolling across the ground. He stopped several feet away, where he staggered back onto one knee, his nose bleeding profusely.

A graceful shadow blocked out the sun, as Seiyaku stepped between the two of them, both fists at her sides.

"Leave her alone!" the fiery girl barked, advancing towards Jun. "Or I'll punch you again!"

Jun gritted his teeth, then started running towards the exit, but not before tossing a few choice words over his shoulder.

Soon enough he was gone, and Seiyaku turned back to Kanade, who was still on the ground. Despite the violent act she had just committed, she had a gentle smile on her face.

"Hey," she said, kneeling before the green haired girl. "Are you okay?"

She looked beautiful, in a visceral sort of way, and Kanade found herself blushing as she looked away. "Y-Yes. I'm fine."

Seiyaku offered her hand, and Kanade took in gingerly, then yelped when she was yanked to her feet with surprising force. She started dusting off her clothes, fidgeting nervously in place.

"That kid's a lot of trouble, huh?" Seiyaku asked, glancing off in the direction Jun had fled. "No one else in our class seems to like him."

Kanade just nodded meekly, not really sure what she was supposed to say. Thank you? She supposed that was appropriate. But her mouth felt glued shut, and she opted to say nothing instead.

"By the way, what's your name?" Seiyaku asked suddenly, turning back to her. Kanade _eeped_ when their eyes met, but felt it would be rude to turn away, so she ended up staring at the other girl's shoes instead.

"K-K-Kanade," she stuttered, her voice shaking. "Sh-Shizuki K-Kanade."

"Kanade, huh?" Seiyaku said, putting her hands on her hips. Then she grinned fully. "That's a cool name! I'm Tachibana Seiyaku. But you can just called me Seiyaku. Let's be friends!"

Strange. Seiyaku went straight to using Kanade's given name too, but for some reason it wasn't so bad as when Jun did it.

"Um…sure?" she said nervously, trying to force a weak smile. It came out looking more like a grimace.

The blue haired girl just laughed, thumping Kanade hard on her back, which nearly drove the air from her lungs. "Hey, lighten up! I'll walk you halfway home today. Just in case that guy's waiting for you around the corner!"

The thought made Kanade's knees start knocking together, and despite her preference to walk home alone she agreed.

* * *

The walk home from school that day was different than usual, and not just because she had Seiyaku with her. Usually on these walks she would be trapped within her own mind, drawing terrible fantasies onto the world around her. But with Seiyaku those fantasies did not exist.

It was comfortingly mundane, in a way.

Seiyaku, herself, turned out to be the type who wore her heart on her sleeve. She was expressive, loud, and outgoing. Sort of like the way Kanade had been, when she was younger. In fact, the parallels were more than a little striking. But she tried to not to think about that, since keeping up a conversation with someone was difficult enough for her on its own.

The short haired girl asked her all sorts of questions, mostly designed to get to know Kanade more as a person. And Kanade found herself answering most of them, though she avoided the ones about her past. Seiyaku seemed to take the hint and stopped asking as well, instead turning to lighter topics.

"So, what's your favorite food?"

"Um…I think broccoli?"

 _"Broccoli?_ Wow. You're practically grown up! Can't stand the stuff myself…"

It was a pointless conversation, but at the same time Kanade didn't mind it. There was a certain genuineness to Seiyaku that told her she had nothing to fear from the girl. That didn't mean something senseless wasn't going to happen to her, but at least in Seiyaku's case Kanade wouldn't be caught off guard.

It was a morbidly comforting thought.

They eventually reached an intersection from distance from the school, and Kanade told her newfound friend that this was far enough.

"Are you sure?" Seiyaku asked, looking around skeptically.

Kanade's street wasn't much to look at. Empty lots, runs down houses, rusted fences. It was the 'bad part of town,' the area no one actually wanted to live in, where criminals and gangsters came to lay low from the eyes of the law. It wasn't the nicest place she had ever lived in, but it was still home. She had nowhere else to go.

"Yeah," she said softly, clutching the straps of her backpack. "See ya."

"See ya, Kanade. Oh, by the way, let's meet here tomorrow. We can walk to school together!" Seiyaku called out, and then she was gone before Kanade could even say anything.

Sighing, the girl turned and dragged herself home.

"I think I need to leave a little earlier tomorrow," she mentioned that night, around a small dinner table.

"Do whatever you like," her grandmother grunted, not looking up from her food. "It's your life, not mine."

Her grandmother had always been more than a little callous.

* * *

The next morning she woke up extra early, albeit begrudgingly, since she liked sleeping in. Sometimes it was easier to remain dead to the world.

As she stepped past the rust corroded gate of her house and into the chilly morning air, Kanade briefly considered not keeping her promise to Seiyaku. Meeting the girl at that same intersection would add more time to her route to school, after all. And as nice as Seiyaku was, Kanade preferred to walk alone.

But then she imagined the blue haired girl standing by herself at the intersection, waiting and waiting, even until the late bell at the school had rung, and sighed to herself. It was probably something the girl would do.

Turning her feet in the right direction, she headed for the intersection.

Seiyaku was already waiting for her when she got there, waving her hand profusely once she drew near. "Hey, Kanade! You're late! We have to get going!"

The energetic girl bounced up and down in place as Kanade shuffled up to her, nose red from the winter cold. She had never been very good at handling weather, even with a coat and a scarf on her, and marveled at the fact that Seiyaku was in nothing but a light jacket. "Morning, Kanade. Sleep well?"

"U-Um…yes. Good morning," the girl replied softly, looking down at her toes. They were running late, but she was too nervous to be the first one to move.

Seiyaku checked her watch, and her eyes bugged out of her head when she saw the time. "Holy cow! We're gonna be late. Yashiro-sensei will kill us!"

With that said she grabbed Kanade's hand and began running at full speed, dragging the diminutive girl along behind her.

"Wah! W-Wait, Tachibana-san, slow down!" Kanade squealed, nearly falling on her face.

Seiyaku just laughed, tugging her along even harder, but her grip on Kanade's hand was gentle. She could break free if she really wanted to. "Come on, Kanade. We're gonna be late! Or do you want me to carry you?"

The thought was more than a little embarrassing, so Kanade forced herself to run.

It did murder on her lungs, but breathing in the crisp air woke her up a little.

They arrived at school with just a minute to spare, filing into the classroom and taking their seats just as Yashiro-sensei was finishing gathering his notes for the day.

When they sat down Jun turned around in his seat and gave Kanade a death glare, making her blood freeze up. But Seiyaku dropped her bag with a heavy thump and gave him a death glare of her own, popping her knuckles with deliberate slowness, and he averted his gaze with an agitated _humph._

Kanade sat down with a gentle sigh of relief. It seemed that as long as Seiyaku was sitting near her, she was safe from Jun's wrath.

She tried to focus on the lesson that inevitably came afterwards, but was soon distracted by the realization that Seiyaku wasn't paying attention. She was drawing absentmindedly on her desk, using her eraser as a toy robot that she had dancing across the wooden surface.

Though Kanade lacked the guts to tell Seiyaku to pay attention, she did quietly slip the girl her notes at the end of the lesson.

Some hours later, when she was gathering her things at the end of the school day, Seiyaku came bounding up to her again.

"Hey, Kanade. Are you free right now?" she asked.

Kanade flinched badly at the sudden intrusion, as she had been lost in own thoughts again. She jumped backwards several inches, only to find Seiyaku staring confusedly at her, and forced herself to calm down.

"U-Um," she began, as she usually did. It was probably her favorite word. "I-I guess?"

"Great!" Seiyaku exclaimed, as Jun glowered at them from his seat. "I wanna show you something. Let's go!"

She grabbed Kanade's wrist again, and they were flying towards the future once more.

* * *

The thing Seiyaku wanted to show her ended up being the local stream, which ran through the eastern half of Kazamino before veering off towards the sea. It was a small, winding thing, just barely thirty yards across, with clear water that showed the little pebbles dotting its surface.

Kanade had passed it many times through her life in this city, but had never paid it much mind, regarding it merely as a fixture of her reality. Her only relationship with this stream was the bridge she used to cross over it.

Seiyaku tugged her over to the apex of this bridge before shrugging her bag off her shoulder, dropping it onto the wooden planking beside her. The stream was rushing steadily by below them, not fast but very much alive, and almost definitely freezing cold. It was the height of winter in Kazamino, and snow banks bordered the crystal clear water on either side.

Letting go of her hand, Seiyaku leapt on top of the railing of the bridge, raising her hands to balance herself on the thin wooden supports.

"Wh-" Kanade's eyes went wide at the move, running towards the other girl. "Tachibana-san, that's dangerous! Get down from there!"

"But this is what I wanted to show you," Seiyaku insisted, though she at least sat down on the railing instead of standing on it. "I passed by this stream yesterday and really wanted to try jumping in it! But I was with my dad and he told me no."

Hearing the mention of a father made a painful twinge ride up Kanade's neck, but she ignored it in favor of addressing the issue at hand. "You'll catch a cold."

The girl just shrugged, swinging her legs in a carefree manner. "I've gotten colds before. They aren't so bad."

It seemed this girl did not have the aversion to suffering Kanade had developed herself. Clutching the straps of her backpack, the green haired girl asked, "Do you even know if it's deep enough to jump in?" If the water was too shallow, Seiyaku would crash into the riverbed and probably break a leg in the process.

Seiyaku glanced over her shoulder at the river, then shrugged nonchalantly. "Not really. But it looks deep enough from here."

With that she prepared to stand up again, but Kanade rushed forward, and now she was the one grabbing the other girl's wrist.

"Don't do it!" she exclaimed, shouting despite herself.

Seiyaku just blinked at her. "Why not?"

"You…you don't even know how deep it is!" she said, thinking it should be obvious. "So much could go wrong. You could…you could get hurt."

The other girl hummed thoughtfully at that, then smiled. Leaning forward from the railing, she clasped Kanade's other hand in hers.

"You know," she said, "My dad's actually not very smart, but he says one thing all the time that I think is _really_ smart."

Kanade blinked. "What's that?"

Seiyaku grinned. "That it never hurts to try!" she shouted, then she was throwing herself backwards over the edge of the railing, using their intertwined hands to pull Kanade along with her.

Before she knew it she was being lifted clear off her feet, the axis of the world spinning around her. Her backpack slipped off her shoulders, and then she was falling, tumbling, wheeling through the air at a dizzying clip, and suddenly the sky and the stream were one, except one was cold and the other wasn't, and there was no way for her to know for sure until she succumbed to gravity.

Then she felt her body breaking the surface of the water, and the cold that gripped her was intense. It was so severe and visceral that she nearly gasped, but stopped herself just before she sucked in a bunch of river water, instead screwing her eyes shut as tight as she could as she began sinking to the bottom.

Fortunately her body was light enough, and she snack gently to the pebbles below the water, her back bumping gently against their rough edges. She floated there for a moment, kept in place by the current, until she gathered the courage to open her eyes.

Everything was washed out and gray down here, but it didn't make her feel sad. It was just new. A sight she had never seen before.

Then her lungs burned for air, and she was rushing back up to the surface, pushing up with her legs.

She broke out of the water with a great gasp, spluttering and shaking the drops out of her hair. Seiyaku came up beside her, and then they were simply floating next to one another, processing what they had just done.

Their eyes met for a brief moment, and then Seiyaku began to laugh.

It was a high pitched, childish giggle, and as Kanade watched her she thought the girl really did have a gorgeous smile. It was just so genuine, an expression unafraid of the failures that life entailed. Before she knew it she was laughing too, and they were both laughing, their voices tangling together in the afternoon air.

In retrospect, it was a very stupid thing that Seiyaku had done. Had the water not been deep enough they might have been injured, or even dead. Kanade knew she had been more than right about that.

But the rush as she fell through the air, the cold slap in the face of the water closing in around her…she had never felt something like that before. She had never been reckless enough to feel it before. It was the joy of now knowing, the joy of _trying,_ that had infused her heart for that one glorious moment.

And though she didn't really believe in that anymore, she allowed herself to revel in it, just this once. Privately, she resolved to stay by Seiyaku's side for as long as it didn't cost her too much. Not because Seiyaku was everything she could have been. Not because she had suddenly had a drastic change of heart.

If anything, she just wanted to see the girl succeed where she had failed.

* * *

Kanade's life had turned gray the night her father killed himself, but that last year in elementary school wasn't so bad. It was almost passable.

She and Seiyaku spent a lot of time together. Kanade didn't have many friends herself, and Seiyaku was new in the neighborhood, so they naturally gravitated towards each other. Seiyaku kept Jun at bay. Kanade helped the girl not fail school. In many ways, it was a mutually beneficial relationship.

Still, Kanade knew that Seiyaku affected her more than she affected the other girl. Seiyaku was always barging in through the doors of her life, taking her along to try new things, to test that, to find those. At the end of the day, Kanade's life was altered on a daily basis by Seiyaku, while she doubted the blue haired girl had changed much at all since moving to Kazamino.

When the science fair rolled around, Seiyaku was the only one who actually wanted to make a miniature volcano, and Kanade, being her partner had reluctantly agreed.

They ended up painting the entire hall red, but Seiyaku seemed to get a big kick out of it.

When the spring festival came for the dozenth time, Seiyaku came to Kanade's door decked out in a yukata and insisted they go together. They ended up trying to catch goldfish at one of those booths Kanade had always been too afraid to try, since the fish felt slimy. Seiyaku ended up catching two and giving one to her.

She still thought they felt gross, but they were pretty to look at.

When it was Kanade's birthday, which Seiyaku had found out by constantly pestering her grandmother via the house phone until she got it, the blue haired girl walked into class with a huge box wrapped in an equally massive bow, hollering that it was the most important day on the planet earth.

It drew the attention of so many people that kids from down the hall came to see what was going on; Kanade was beyond embarrassed, but she accepted the gift nonetheless.

It was the first one she had gotten since the year her parents died.

Besides her own life, Seiyaku's arrival changed the dynamic of the classroom as well. She actively stood up to Jun's antics regardless of what they were, and the two soon became bitter rivals, though Seiyaku tended to win any actual confrontations that broke out between them. It was a new concept, the idea of actually answering Jun's violence with force of your own, but it was a welcome one all the same. Other kids in the class began following Seiyaku's example, and soon Jun's iron grip over them seemed to fade.

At least he didn't ask for Kanade's homework anymore.

Slowly but surely, Kanade allowed herself to consider Seiyaku as a friend. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say she had no choice other than to do so. Everything about Seiyaku was explosive, unwavering; when she made a promise she always kept it. When she was angry she was liable to fight you. When she wanted something she pursued it relentlessly.

When she saw injustice in any form, she ran off to fight it.

When she saw that Kanade was alone, she walked over to keep her company.

When she saw that Kanade didn't want to go home, she gave her an excuse not to.

When the nights seemed darkest, she was the light.

And when the school year ended, she announced that she was moving again.

"What?" Kanade asked softly, praying to God she had misheard. But God wasn't so reliable, not by her standards.

They were sitting on a little grassy hill that led up to the local church, on a bright and happy Sunday. Or it had been happy, until that very moment. The bell atop the church was tolling in the distance, and that morning service was just letting out. The local pastor in Kazamino was quite popular amongst the resident churchgoers; Kanade had met his redheaded daughter once, and the family seemed nice enough.

Seiyaku plucked at the grass irritably, flicking it into the wind. "My dad's gotten into some trouble with the cops again. He says we have to move before something bad happens. It hate it. This always happens. It was why we had to move last time, too. I don't want to. But he won't listen to me. He never does."

Kanade just stared at the horizon in the distance, wondering how long it would take to actually walk there. "When do you leave?"

"Next week. He just told me. I have no say."

One week. One week was all she had left to spend with Seiyaku? No. It was too sudden. It was too soon. It was happening again. It was all happening all over again. The senselessness was returning. The lack of order, the utter chaos. Kanade was going to lose someone dear to her for the third time in her life, and for the third time there was nothing she could do about it.

"We still have a week," Seiyaku said comfortingly, squeezing her friend's arm. "We can play every day until then! It'll be fun. Don't you think?"

But Kanade turned away, pulling her arm free. "No. I don't want to."

Seiyaku blinked. "Why not?"

Why not? A better question was _why_. What was the point of seeing Seiyaku again in this final week of theirs? She was going to lose the girl either way. Another week would just add to the pain of the loss. This was so stupid. She had learned her lesson already, hadn't she? She had learned that there was no actually point in trying. There was no reward system in this life. Effort didn't translate to results. No, in this world of whims, striving towards something was meaningless. She should have known that. She _had_ known that.

But like a fool, she had allowed herself to open her heart again.

"I…I just don't. Just go. Please." Kanade hid her face in her arms, pulling her knees against her chest.

Seiyaku sighed and reached over to her, taking the girl's hand. "Kanade-"

"Go!"

Seiyaku flinched back, surprised to hear the outburst from a usually soft spoken girl. Biting her lip, she stood up and walked a ways down the hill, then turned back again.

"Bye, Kanade," she said, blowing her a kiss. "I'm glad I met you."

With that she turned and disappeared down the hill, and for the sake of her sanity, Kanade allowed her time with Seiyaku to pass.

* * *

A/N

Okay, guys. So this turned out being a _lot_ longer than I expected (what's new), so I had to divide this into a two part presentation, or else it would be one mega long chapter. Even though I tried to write it in a more general and fast paced, time skipping style (as you might have noticed) I still couldn't fit everything I wanted to show into one chapter length. As a result, the second part will go up later, when I finish it.

Much thanks to FoldedHands for helping me realize the potential these two have, by the way. I had fun thinking up their backstory. Even if all I really did was shove a bunch of angst into it.

Thanks for reading!

~Banshee


	13. But He Is Not Cruel (2)

Part two of the Kanade arc.

* * *

Chapter 13: But He is Not Cruel

Middle school ended up being more or less a complete nightmare.

The day Seiyaku told her she was moving Kanade wandered aimlessly around the town, trying to find some sort of endgame in all of it. She already regretted what she had said to her first real friend. She was already beginning to wish she had the power to turn back time. She had known she would feel this way. But she had done it anyway.

She arrived home past dinner time, to a furious grandmother. The old woman demanded to know where she had been all day, but Kanade could only shake her head slowly and drift off to her room, making the big mistake of blowing off her grandmother.

She got a beating that night, but she barely felt it.

A week later Seiyaku moved, and Kanade watched it happen from the bushes across the street. She lacked the courage the walk out there and talk to the blue haired girl one last time. What was the point, regardless? It wouldn't change anything. Nothing would change anything. Besides, the girl's father was large and scary looking, and she preferred not to approach him.

Then the girl was gone, and Kanade was alone.

* * *

Some months later middle school game along, and things were back to the way they had been before. With Seiyaku absent, Jun was now the undisputed tyrant of the entire classroom, as there was no one quite ballsy enough to stand up to him on their own. Seiyaku was special in that way. The rest of the class was able to rally behind her, but never take her place.

That meant Kanade was back to handing over most of her assignments for the boy to copy, but at this point she was practically numb to it. At this point he was just another part of the senselessness.

Speaking of Jun, it seemed destined that he would continue to descend into whatever hole he had begun digging himself into since elementary school. The boy had always been the rough and rowdy type, but as he grew older it seemed to become something darker, something Kanade could not precisely place. There was anger behind the boy's eyes now. Yes, that was it. Anger. Not the cold anger that Kanade used to cloak herself in everyday life, but the blazing anger that burned everything around it.

She learned to be more wary of him. Besides his usual habits of acting out in class, he began ditching sporadically here and there, and people began to whisper that he was getting involved with the local gangs. Kanade knew for sure that those gangs existed, of course, seeing as she lived in an area frequented by them. But she didn't know for sure if Jun was really one of them.

Well, not that it really mattered to her.

* * *

Three more years, and she was in high school.

Most people from her middle school fed directly into the nearby high school in her neighborhood, but Kanade had different plans. She studied hard and managed to get accepted into Kazamino High, the only school in the area that actually had an entrance exam. It meant she could leave most of her middle school classmates behind, and hopefully find a new environment where people would not question her. If there was anything that she had always had going for her, it was her ability to score well on tests.

In her final year in middle school her grandmother fell ill, and Kanade found yet another piece of her life carved away in order to take care of the old woman. Her grandmother had raised her after both her parents died, after all, albeit reluctantly. She owed the lady that much.

With the weight of all this on her shoulders, Kanade woke up one fateful morning and dragged herself to her first day of class.

An hour or so later she was walking down the hall of her school, pointedly ignoring everyone she passed, but they were busy socializing amongst themselves. As long as she kept her head down and didn't say anything, people would mistake her as shy and probably leave her alone. She had it down to a science.

She paused for a moment in front of the classroom door, closing both eyes and making sure her face said nothing.

Then she reached out and slid it open, stepping inside.

And there, sitting inside a thick knot of other students, was Tachibana Seiyaku.

The blue haired girl was sitting at her desk in the far back, surrounded by about a dozen girls who were all desperately vying for her attention. It seemed that the girl was popular already. When Kanade walked in she threw the door shut behind her, and when it struck the frame Seiyaku blinked and looked in her direction.

Their eyes met for one ethereal moment, and then Kanade looked away, walking over to her desk.

She sat down and did her best not to turn her head, not even slightly, because it would tip off that she had recognized Seiyaku on sight. Instead she took out her notebook and pretended to scribble something, but she was really just scratching out the symbol for "ah" in hiragana, to simulate her crippling urge to scream out loud.

 _Seiyaku._ Here, now, after three long years. But why? Why here and now? Actually, no; that was a stupid question. Obviously, the girl had also taken the entrance exam and passed the cutoff. That much was obvious.

But after that day on the church hill, Kanade had been thoroughly convinced that she was never going to see Seiyaku again. That was generally how things had gone in her life; first she would learn to love someone, and then they would either die or leave. She wasn't exactly accustomed to meeting such people again.

Opening her eyes, she looked down at her notebook and realized she had scribbled _"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"_ all over it. Sighing, she grabbed her eraser from her bag.

Before she could get rid of her writing, however, the door was thrown open again.

And this time, she actually did scream out loud.

Why? Because Jun was strolling through the door like it was nobody's business, both hands stuck in his pockets, giving everyone in the room a death glare.

Jun. Fucking _Jun?_ How the hell? Wasn't he supposed to be stupid? How in the world could he have passed the entrance exam? Why would he even _take_ it? Kanade's brain began to throb painfully at the series of revelations, and she could only stare with her jaw hanging loose as Jun walked over to where she was sitting, staring down at her from his now considerable height; he had grown over the summer.

"Shizuki," he merely grunted, before taking his seat behind her.

Great. Now she _really_ couldn't turn around in her seat. For the whole year.

Jesus Christ.

Bending over her notebook, she forwent her eraser and went back to scribbling out her screams.

* * *

She managed to make it through the first week without speaking to either of them.

In Seiyaku's case this was actually surprisingly easy; the girl never approached Kanade herself, though sometimes she could feel eyes scratching at the back of her neck, so she never turned around in her seat. At some point she even forgot what the back of the class even looked like.

Jun also turned out to be easily dealt with, and this unnerved Kanade much more than Seiyaku's passivity had; this boy had been the bane of her life for the past six years or so, and suddenly meeting him again had caused her to brace for another long wave of bullying.

But the boy hardly ever spoke to her. He would merely nod in acknowledgement if their eyes happened to meet, and he almost never asked her for help on assignments, unless it was something he had genuinely forgotten. It was such a surreal experience that at first she was convinced Jun was actually plotting to murder her. But soon her rationale returned and she managed to convince herself that maybe, just maybe, the boy had changed. Maybe he had matured over the summer. Maybe things were different now.

Probably wishful thinking, but she could dream.

After the final bell on Friday she gathered her things and prepared to leave, glad that she could at least spend the weekend in peace. It appeared that her original plan of leaving her past behind had completely backfired. Now the two biggest parts of said past were sitting right behind her.

When she reached the front gate, Jun was waiting for her.

He was standing directly in her path, so that she had to either stop walking or go around him. Since it was rather obvious he was there for her Kanade opted to stop, though it took all her courage to do so. She raised her normally lowered head and looked at him, and observed that the boy seemed somewhat nervous.

"Can I help you?" she asked neutrally, hesitantly.

Jun scratched his head and muttered something incoherent, then said, "Yeah…listen, Shizuki. Do you have some free time right now?"

Kanade blinked, her heart constricting. The wild part of her imagination thought that this might be some sort of confession, but she immediately dismissed this, since it hurt her brain too much to think about. But what could Jun possibly want with her?

"Um…" she cleared her throat nervously. "I guess. Why?"

"I need a favor," he said, meeting her eyes with his own at last. Kanade bit her lip, somewhat disturbed by the dark energy she found there. "I need you to follow me somewhere."

"Where?"

"Just to Culver Street."

Culver Street. That was near her home, so she wouldn't be going out of her way. Part of her wanted to ask why she had to go there of all places, but something told her Jun wasn't going to say even if she asked. And she was too afraid to blatantly refuse him.

"I…alright," she agreed at last, holding her schoolbag in front of her knees. "I-I can go with you for a little while."

Jun nodded and turned around to take the lead, and as soon as his eyes were off of her Kanade slipped a hand into her bag, grabbing the cellphone inside and slipping it inside her sleeve.

She might have agreed to follow Jun, but she was nowhere near trusting him completely.

* * *

Culver Street was a little road well within the worst part of Kazamino, in an area where some of the houses looked on the verge of collapsing and the streets were littered with holes. Everything metal was rusted, and the only bright white one could see was the bird shit rotting on top of ancient looking cars, most of them lacking license plates, some of them with smashed in windows.

The place looked incredibly suspicious, but it wasn't much worse than where she lived, so there wasn't much she could say.

Jun led her to the far end of the street, where a small alleyway burrowed its way between the buildings, and stopped to let her through.

"In here," he said bluntly, jabbing with his thumb.

Kanade stopped in her tracks, radars flying off the charts. "W-What's in there?"

"Nothing bad, I promise. You just have to go in there."

She stared into Jun's eyes, and for a brief moment genuinely considered running. But she wasn't very fast, and he would probably catch her before she got very far. With him watching her like this, she couldn't call for help, with her phone or otherwise.

Swallowing thickly, she walked past him and entered the alleyway.

It was dark and gloomy looking between the walls of two ancient buildings. The sun was dying in the evening sky, and everything looked deep and brooding, from the trash littering the ground or the spindly pipes hanging from above. Kanade made it about twenty yards in before three black figures appeared at the far end of the alley.

"Jun?" she breathed, trying to back up to the boy standing behind her. It was incredibly ironic, turning to him for help, but it was better than walking towards whoever was waiting on the other side.

"No. You can't go back now," Jun said darkly, pushing her from behind. "Keep walking."

Kanade's heart was going ballistic inside her ribcage. Oh, no. Oh, no no no no no no. She was dead. These men were going to murder her for sure. Then her grandmother would be all alone with no one to look after her, and who knew, the police might not even manage to find her body. She broke out into a cold sweat, stinging liquid trickling down her neck, like fangs against her skin. But she couldn't run, because there was nowhere to go, not backwards because the Jun from her past was there, not forward because the black figures of the future were waiting, jaws wide open.

So to stop herself from screaming she chomped down on her tongue and kept walking, until she was sandwiched between past and future.

"Well, well, Jun," one of the dark figures said, stopping a few yards in front of them. "You chose a pretty one. I didn't know you knew any girls like that."

She had bit down too hard earlier, and the metallic taste of blood was trickling through her mouth. Kanade tried to focus on that rather than the pure danger of her current circumstances.

"T-This is good enough, right?" she was surprised to hear Jun's voice break, since it had never happened to her knowledge before. "I did what you asked. I brought someone for you. I'm in now, right?"

"Not so fast, little brother," the dark figure in the middle said, crossing his thick arms. Kanade couldn't make out any of their faces in the half light, but…little brother? Was this Jun's infamous older sibling? "Did you really think it was going to be that easy?"

A grinding sound behind her, as Jun grit his teeth together. "What else do I have to do? I've done so much already! Why can't you just let me join?"

"Relax," Jun's older brother chided, reaching into his pocket. He tossed something over Kanade's head, and she heard Jun catch it behind her, something small and rectangular. "There's just one thing left you got to do. I think it's pretty obvious."

There was a brief silence as Jun opened whatever it was that had been thrown to him. A small snipping sound cut through the air, and Kanade felt her blood run cold.

It was the same sound she heard every time she cut vegetables for her grandmother.

The sound of a knife being drawn.

"Shiro," Jun breathed, "I can't do this."

"It's simple, Jun. One life for another. And who the hell are you calling Shiro? Show your older brother some respect."

Kanade could feel her intestines writhing in pure terror in her gut. She had heard about this before. The initiations held by gangs in order to admit new members. Some of them required the commitment of petty thievery, while others involved some form of physical punishment. Either way, there was always cost to join the pack.

In this case, that cost was to be her life.

"…If I do this," Jun said softly, "Will you let me join? Will I finally be able to be by your side?"

A flash of white slashed open the dark figure's face as he smiled.

"Of course, Jun. When has your older brother ever lied to you?"

"Jun," Kanade half gasped, "Please. Don't do this."

"Shut up," Jun snarled. "And don't turn around or I'll stab you."

 _Aren't you going to do that anyway?_ she thought wildly, but stayed facing forward nonetheless.

"Hurry up Jun," Shiro said darkly. "We don't have time."

She could hear Jun turning the knife over in his hands and wanted to throw up. Finally he took in a deep breath behind her and said, "I'm sorry, Shizuki."

 _Oh god._

She whirled around and wrapped her arms around her stomach, thinking that he would try to stab her there first. Jun lunged forward as Kanade fell backward, and for one terrifying moment she knew it was too late, that he would reach her and she would die, bleeding out just like her father had done all those years ago.

A pure blue light flooded the alleyway, and she though, _Ah, this is it. I'm dead. This must be heaven._

Then there was a deep shuddering boom as Jun was blasted from behind by a beam of energy, sending him flying to the far side of the alleyway.

Shiro screamed and threw himself to the ground as streaks of sizzling blue light began raining down from above, like meteors and stars, smashing into the ground and leaving black scorch marks where they hit. All three of the dark figures scrambled to their feet and began running for their lives, one of them picking up Jun's crippled body and throwing him over a shoulder, before disappearing around the corner.

Kanade laid there, surrounded by several small fires, the world spinning around her. Her eyes were spinning in her head, and she felt like she wasn't breathing. The blue light had faded somewhat, so that it was only shining from above, and as she stared sightlessly at the wall the light seemed to come closer, until somebody was picking her body off her ground.

 _Kanade…Kanade!_

She opened her bleary eyes in response, and thought she saw an angel.

A beautiful blue haired girl, dressed in powerful, ancient looking armor, surrounded by a pale blue halo. The angel was screaming something in Kanade's face, but she couldn't hear any of it because her ears were still ringing from the explosions. Finally two gentle hands rested against Kanade's ears, and then sound came rushing back in, and she sucked in one giant breath all at once.

"Kanade!" Seiyaku shook her desperately, just short of smacking the girl. "Hey! Are you okay?"

"S…Seiyaku?" she murmured, coughing.

A relieved smile broke across the girl's face, and then Kanade was being pulled into a hug, one she was too weak to resist.

"Come on," she said, scooping up the girl bridal style. "Tell me your address. I'll take you home."

* * *

That was the night Kanade learned of the existence of magical girls.

She didn't believe it at first. Most of her felt like she _shouldn't_ believe it. Strange sentient aliens from another galaxy? A never ending war against entropy? Any wish in the world? Monsters and demons from the deepest darkest nightmares? It sounded like a dark fairy tale. It felt like the ramblings of a crazy man.

But she couldn't deny what she had just experienced either. She couldn't deny the deafening boom of the magical missiles exploding overhead, seeing Jun fly clear across the alley, and thinking for a moment that Seiyaku was an angel sent by God to take her to the afterlife.

They reached Kanade's house in record time, because apparently Seiyaku was capable of leaping great distances, and they leapt quietly across the rooftops of Kazamino, using the night as their cloak.

When they reached the front door of the house Kanade peeked inside, knowing she was several hours late. But her grandmother was already asleep in her room, and probably had been this entire time. Not that the old woman would have called her if she wasn't. Kanade motioned for Seiyaku to follow her quietly, and they snuck their way to up their room, and that was when the blue haired girl began telling her story.

The reason why Seiyaku had to move, she said, was because her father was heavily involved with the local gangs. He owed them money, money that he didn't have. There was no one else to turn to. He had already borrowed from everybody on the map. The only option, then, was to run.

"We fled for three years," Seiyaku said, tracing her finger across the sheets. They were sitting on Kanade's bed, facing each other, though unable to look each other in the eye. "We travelled all over Japan. If we had passports we probably would have gone all the way across the world. My dad never told me anything. He just said I needed to follow him and everything would turn out fine. So I did. But I knew I never should have trusted him."

After three years on the run, three years of transferring out of dozens and dozens of middle schools, the inevitable finally happened.

"They caught up to us," Seiyaku said, showing her teeth. She bunched up the sheets in her fists. "They came out of nowhere. One minute we were sitting in a motel room together and the next the whole place was surrounded. There was nothing we could do. They took my dad away and I never saw him again."

Kanade felt a thick lump forming in her throat. "So did they…"

"Kill him?" Seiyaku asked rhetorically, her voice full of disgust. "Probably. I don't know. I almost don't care. That man took away almost everything good that I had in my life and burnt it just so he could save himself. He took away my friends. He took away my future. He took me away from you. If the gangs didn't kill him I might have done it myself."

Kanade was deathly silent afterwards, and Seiyaku looked up to see a stricken look on the green haired girl's face.

"Oh. Oh no. I…Kanade, I'm sorry," Seiyaku sighed, reaching out to her former friend, but Kanade found herself shrinking back without thinking.

"You've changed so much, Seiyaku," Kanade said softly. "There's something more…violent about you now. And all this stuff about magical girls…I don't feel like I know who you are anymore."

Seiyaku left her hand hovering between them for a moment, then let it drop, smiling wryly at the bedsheets.

"I've always been this way," she said. "Maybe I just never showed it around you, Kanade. But I'm just like my dad. I hate it, but it's true. I never know when to give up. And when I fail sometimes I get angry. That's just how I am."

She turned and looked out the window, and the faceless moon, which was pouring in through the opened curtains.

"As for the magic…" she murmured, lifting her right hand. A small blue flame appeared above her palm, making Kanade flinch badly. "That's another story."

According to Seiyaku, the Incubator came to her much later. Months after the gangs caught up to them, months after anything could be done. With her father now out of the picture, Seiyaku now became settled with the man's debt, meaning that she was forced to return to Kazamino with the gang, the alternative being her rather untimely death.

Part of her considered taking the easy way out right then and there, but her stubborn nature would not allow it.

The days that came after were spend at the servitude of the gang members. As a child there wasn't much she could do, but they taught her to steal, and how to fight. They sent her on little errands; swiping valuables, carrying messages. Occasionally fights would break out with the other gangs in the area, but somehow Seiyaku managed to never take a life herself. Whenever violence erupted she would run and hide somewhere, as if to protect what little humanity she had left.

But running with a gang from Kazamino was harrowing no matter how well one managed it, and soon Seiyaku felt the weight of it breaking her shoulders. She grew dark and irritable. Even some of the gang members grew wary around her. She learned to fight so well that most of the other hustlers her age didn't dare pick a fight with her.

Until one day when she turned a corner, and ran into a certain fiery redhead.

Seiyaku had seen this girl around before. It didn't seem that the redhead was backed by any one gang, but that didn't stop her from stealing from every single one of them, as if she ran the place. Seiyaku had heard that the redhead was dangerous but never took it seriously; how dangerous could one person be?

That was, until said redhead tried to pickpocket her.

Seiyaku sensed it immediately and whirled around, intending to kick her in the side of the head, but found her foot thoroughly blocked. She fell backwards and then the redhead was upon her, and they descended into a bloody fistfight, one experienced fighter against another.

At last Seiyaku found herself pinned to the asphalt with her arm wrenched painfully against her back, the heat from the tarmac searing against her face. She struggle valiantly, only to gasp when the redhead twisted her arm further, to the point that she threatened to dislocate the joint entirely.

"Give it up, you loser," the redhead hissed, breath hot in Seiyaku's ear. "Don't pick fights you can't win. No one beats me."

Seiyaku merely hissed back, trying again to break free but failing. There with a cut on her face that was pressing against the sun heated road, making the wound burn with pain, but she bit down on her tongue.

"Relax! It's just some snacks. Besides, I'm probably hungrier than you."

The arrogance in the redhead's voice made Seiyaku's fighting spirit flare up again, and she began thrashing beneath the girl, making her cluck in disappointment.

"I admire your guts," she said, "But you've got to know when to let things go."

With that she clocked Seiyaku on the back of the head, and she blacked out.

When she regained consciousness her stuff was gone, but at least she was alive. She scraped her bloodied body off the floor and dragged herself back to the hideout, keeping her mind thoughtless the entire way.

Everyone looked at her weird when she walked in, seeing as she didn't usually come in with her own blood on her clothes. But no one said anything, and she managed to make it to her tiny room without interruption, where she fell into the poor excuse for a bed.

It hadn't mattered. No matter how hard she tried, she was unable to defeat the mysterious redhead. Seiyaku had always believed that as long as she kept at something, she would succeed eventually. It was the only good piece of advice her father had ever given her. But this time, not matter how hard she tried the redhead would have kicked her ass anyway. Effort had no place in that equation.

What the hell was she doing with her life? She was getting into fights all the time now. Everything she did or made went immediately to the gang to pay off her father's debt. It would be years before she would be allowed to go free, assuming they let her go at all. Were things going to end up just like they had with the redhead? Was she going to lose in the end, and lay broken and hurt on the ground, no matter how hard she tried?

That night, an alien showed himself to her.

She would skip over the part where she couldn't believe there was an actual alien sitting in front of her. She would skip over the part where she had to wrap her mind around the fact that magic and monsters were real. Instead she would always remember that the creature had told her she could have anything within the realm of imagination.

And, well, the rest was history.

"So you mean that there are demons out there right now?" Kanade whispered, staring out at Kazamino through the window.

Seiyaku followed her gaze and nodded. "You won't be able to see them with your human eyes. But they're out there. And sometimes they hurt people."

"And do you always protect them?"

"Of course I do. That was my wish, you know? To always have the power to accomplish the things I most desire." Seiyaku reached across the bed and took Kanade's hand in her own. "And I guess, earlier today, I really wanted to be able to save you."

Kanade smiled meekly, blushing quietly as she put her other hand over her friend's. "I'm glad you did."

They gazed at each other for a long moment, bathed in moonlight, wondering where all the time had gone. Kanade wondered what life would have been like if she had followed Seiyaku that one day. If things would have been different if she tried. If she wasn't resigned to the fact that tragedy was inevitable.

Then Seiyaku pulled her into a tight hug, and those thoughts disappeared.

"I missed you so much," the magical girl whispered, crying gently into her shoulder.

Kanade closed her eyes and hugged her friend back, thinking that Seiyaku probably hadn't cried in the three years they had been apart. But now that they were together again, just maybe, the girl was able to show some weakness.

Maybe there was hope yet.

* * *

Jun wasn't at school the next day.

[ _I hit him square on with that magic bolt yesterday,_ ] Seiyaku said telepathically as they entered the classroom. [ _I wouldn't expect him to be up on his feet so soon._ ]

[ _Do you…think he'll be okay?_ ] Kanade asked worriedly. She hated Jun throughly, but not enough to wish death upon him.

[ _…I don't know. I'm not sure. But I didn't shoot to kill, so he should be fine._ ]

"Alright, class. Before we begin," the teacher said, stacking his papers on top of the podium. "Jun has had an accident and won't be able to attend school for a while. I hope you will all wish him the best. Seiyaku, you can move up a seat for now."

There was a scraping of chairs as Seiyaku took Jun's old seat, and Kanade felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck.

[ _Hehe, now there's no one who can come between us,_ ] Seiyaku teased, poking Kanade in the back.

The green haired girl flushed and looked at her desk. [ _Y-Yeah, I guess._ ]

Life changed after that day in the alleyway. Kanade hadn't planned on having any real friends during high school, so reuniting with Seiyaku brought its own set of challenges. Seiyaku's inherent popularity, for one. She could tell her classmates were jealous that Seiyaku always favored her over them, but never took an active role in explaining the situation to them. She had gotten better at not caring what other people thought about her.

The two of them began spending most of their free time together, in the same way they had in elementary school. Though Kanade's impression that Seiyaku had changed was mostly correct, she soon found that the girl was the same at her core. Kind, righteous, determined; the same basic person was still there. It seemed that though Seiyaku had been through as much suffering in her life as Kanade, she hadn't changed in the slightest.

Whether that was strength or ignorance, she couldn't say.

Things were never exactly the same as they used to be, though. Sometimes they would be walking together and Seiyaku's head would suddenly snap in the opposite direction, the telltale sign that she had sensed a demon.

"I'm sorry, Kanade. But I've got to go," the blue haired warrior would always say, rather apologetically.

"It's okay," Kanade would always say, giving her hand a squeeze. "Go get them."

She didn't mind the sort of double life that Seiyaku led. She understood the circumstances behind it. In a way, it fit Seiyaku very well. She could very easily imagine her friend as some hero of justice, fighting monsters no one could ever see.

At the same time, however, she also knew the inherent danger of Seiyaku's position. There were many nuances to it, so many that it was difficult to keep track of without being in the same shoes herself, and Seiyaku had explicitly forbidden her from ever forming a contract herself.

"To be honest, if the moment ever comes and you decided to contract, I can't stop you," she had said. "But the Incubators only approach those who are desperate and have no options left. I don't want you to ever fall to that level."

Then there was, of course, the delicate matter of Seiyaku's gang involvement, whether it was voluntary or not. If the school found out she was screwed. None of her fellow gang members knew about her powers yet, since it was common practice to hide magic from ordinary humans, but she had unleashed them against rivals gangs in the past.

"I usually hide my face," Seiyaku explained. "But it's hard to hide those missiles when I fire them."

 _Indeed,_ Kanade thought, remembering the hot streaks of light from before.

Yet despite these obstacles, they managed to recapture some semblance of their past relationship. Seiyaku continued to drag her all around town, going on adventures, bringing light to her life. Occasionally Kanade would bring her over to her house, and eventually her grandmother saw them, stopping in the living room as she was passing through.

"Oh, grandmother," Kanade said hastily, unaware of the old woman's presence in the house. She usually planned it so they could be alone. "Were you sleeping?"

Her grandmother just eyed Seiyaku, who bowed respectfully. "Friend of yours?"

"Yes, from school," Kanade said, biting her lip, fearing some sort of harsh response.

The old woman just looked Seiyaku up and down again, then grunted, "I see," before leaving the room.

Before she exited, however, she stopped and found Seiyaku's eyes.

"Take good care of her, you hear?"

It was the strangest thing she had ever heard come out of the woman's mouth.

* * *

Near the end of the winter term, Seiyaku announced that she would leave the gang.

"Really?" Kanade said, looking up from her crepe. Seiyaku had bought one for her, even though she insisted she could pay for herself. The girl never listened.

"Yeah, really." They were sitting by the bank of a river, the same one they had jumped into all those years ago. "I'm sick of staying there. And I'm strong enough to stick it out on my own now."

"Where will you stay?"

"I've met some other magical girls from around here," she explained, tossing a pebble into the river. "Most of the ones I've met are nasty, but these ones seem alright. They've agreed to let me stay with them for a while."

Kanade closed her eyes and bit into her crepe. "That's good. I'm happy for you."

Seiyaku just smiled and reached out, wiping some cream off the girl's upper lip. Kanade blushed deeply as she licked her own finger clean. "Yeah. But part of me wonders where all of this is going. I don't exactly have a bright future. No talents either."

Kanade though about that as she finished the last of her crepe. "Well, you're good at cooking."

"Tch. Yeah. That'll come in handy some day."

"Well, you could make a good wife," she said offhandedly, licking the cream from her fingers.

Seiyaku grinned playfully and leaned into Kanade's space. "Like _your_ wife?"

Kanade's head exploded in embarrassment as she fell back onto the grass, waving her hand wildly in the air. "W-W-W-W-W-W-W-Wh-"

"Jeez, I'm just kidding!" Seiyaku laughed, standing up and brushing herself off. She extended her hand down to her. "Come on, let's go. I'll walk you home."

The sun was low in the sky as they made their way back, exchanging idle chit chat along the way. Kanade felt a small flutter of happiness in her chest as they walked side by side by the road. She never would have thought she would get to feel this way again. Perhaps God did things without reason, but maybe sometimes he did things that just so happened to benefit her. Maybe if she lived for long enough enough good would accumulate to make living worth it.

Closing her eyes, she was about to reach out and take Seiyaku's hand when a bullet struck the building beside them.

"Get down!" Seiyaku screamed, grabbing her and throwing them to the ground as a second bullet whizzed through where their heads had been, exploding against the tiling of another wall.

Kanade turned her head blearily, trying to make out where the shots were coming from, and saw a car parked on the other side of the road with the windows rolled down.

And there, sitting behind the wheel with a murderous look on his face, was Jun's older brother.

 _Oh, shit._

"Fucking get them!" the man roared, as the other men in the car began to hurriedly reload, shoving fresh magazines into their pistols.

Just as Kanade realized what was going on she felt herself being lifted, and Seiyaku was running in a full sprint with Kanade in her arms, taking off down the sidewalk.

A bright blue light flashed around Seiyaku's body as she transformed, moments before a bullet buried itself in her shoulder. The girl winced but ignored the pain, letting her magic heal the wound so she could keep running, diving into an alleyway and zigzagging her way through the buildings.

It took several minutes, but eventually she managed to lose them, waiting quietly behind the shadow of a dumpster until the sound of the car's engine had faded away. Kanade was hyperventilating in her arms the whole time, but she could only put a finger to the girl's lips, stroking her hair comfortingly.

At last it was safe, and she carried Kanade home.

The girl was shaking badly when they reached the front gate of her house, and Seiyaku's heart ached at the sight. "Come on," she whispered, ushering Kanade forward. "I'll stay overnight. You'll be fine."

Kanade nodded shakily and wobbled her way to the front door, hands nearly vibrating as she reached for the knob. Seiyaku was about to follow her in when she sensed it.

Demons. A huge horde of them, near the center of town. Seiyaku went still in front of the house as Kanade turned to look at her curiously, the setting sun drawing long shadows across their faces.

Comprehension dawned on Kanade's face, and she reached out and grasped Seiyaku's wrist.

"I-It's f-fine, Seiyaku. G-Go."

"But…I don't want to leave you here by yourself either," Seiyaku insisted, twining their fingers together. The girl's hands were shaking so badly. Yet she still wanted Seiyaku to go? "After what just happened…"

But Kanade shook her head, grasping her friend's hands more tightly. "But it's your wish, isn't it? To try and succeed. I'll be fine. I want you to go. I want you…to do what I couldn't."

Seiyaku stared at the girl, horribly conflicted, then lowered her head.

"Alright," she said. "But I won't leave you alone either. I'll ask a friend to come look after you."

Seiyaku called someone on her cell, then walked back to the front gate, turning back to wave goodbye to Kanade. The demure girl waved back, trying to offer a reassuring smile.

A few minutes later another girl appeared in front of the gate, materializing seemingly out of nowhere.

"Shizuki Kanade?" she asked, pulling a thick scarf down from her nose. The girl was short but had a powerful appearance, and Kanade knew immediately not to underestimate her.

Kanade nodded, and the newcomer let herself through the gate, walking up and sticking out her hand.

"Name's Mishki. Seiyaku called and said you needed someone to look after you."

She laughed nervously and accepted the handshake. "I suppose. I don't know what you're exactly supposed to protect me from, though."

"And I cant guarantee your safety, either. But I'll do my best. Seiyaku's been a good friend to me. For now, let's get inside."

* * *

It was winter break, so Kanade didn't have school for the time she spend hiding out in her house. Her grandmother was present, of course, but for some reason she never seemed to notice that Mishki was there, as if the girl were invisible to the old woman. Kanade assumed it was some sort of power that the girl had, though she never mustered the courage to ask.

The morning after the attack Seiyaku called her cell, and it made Kanade happy to hear the girl's voice.

 _"Hey,"_ the magical girl said from her end, sounding out of breath. _"Did you make it through the night okay?"_

"Yeah," Kanade said softly, drawing her knees up to her chest. It was early in the morning, and her grandmother was still asleep. Mishki was dozing quietly in the corner. "Mishki is looking after me. But either way I think I'll be fine."

 _"Don't let your guard down so soon,"_ Seiyaku warned her. " _Gangs like that don't give up. Especially guys like Jun's brother. That guy's infamous in every crime circle around here. You don't want to get caught by him."_

 _"_ Do you think that's why he attacked us?" Kanade whispered, hugging herself. "Because of what you did to Jun?"

 _"Probably."_ Seiyaku's tone was grim. " _I snuck into the general hospital the other day and found Jun in one of the rooms. He'll live, but he isn't in the greatest shape ever. I might have gone too far."_

"You shouldn't have hurt him," Kanade sighed, thinking about how stressful her life was going to become. A gang out to get her. And the police wouldn't help. Not in this part of town.

She could hear Seiyaku shrugging on her end of the line.

 _"Rather him than you."_

* * *

Mishki stayed in her house for a full week, and she planned to stay for as long as Seiyaku needed her to, until she got another phone call.

"Yeah?" the guide said, pressing the phone to her ear. She was sitting at the dinner table with Kanade and her grandmother, though the latter had no idea she was there. "Woah, wait, slow down. Uh huh…oh. Oh…wait. No way. No, you're kidding…"

Kanade watched curiously as Mishki closed her phone, a warped look on her face, but couldn't say anything with her grandmother sitting next to her.

After dinner she went into her room, where Mishki explained herself.

"I'm afraid I can't stay with you any longer," the girl said apologetically. "Seiyaku just called me, saying that something…big is about to happen. As in, big to the point that she needs me to come over right now."

"What's happening?" Kanade asked.

Mishki frowned, then glanced guiltily at her phone. "Well, that's sort of the thing. She told me not to tell you. I'm sorry."

She stared at the guide, at a loss for words. "Is it really that bad?"

"Maybe," Mishki said simply, heading to the window and pulling it open. She paused for a moment, then turned back to her.

"Oh, and as one last piece of advice," she said, scarf flapping in the wind, "Don't go near the church."

* * *

Life more or less returned to normal after Mishki left. Kanade felt a little skittish at first without the girl's protection, but eventually she rationalized that if Shiro wanted to kill her, he would have tried it by now. It wasn't as if he knew about Mishki.

With that thought in mind she tried to go back to her daily routine, though it wasn't as easy she would have liked.

She hadn't seen Seiyaku in over a week. The fact that she missed the girl was besides the point. The bigger problem was that she was worried. According to Mishki, the girl was dealing with some issues between rival groups of magical girls in the city. It seemed that Seiyaku was always somehow tied down by gangs, whether she was a puella magi or not.

Two days after Mishki left, Kanade was sitting quietly in her living room, staring at the ceiling with a bored look on her face. There wasn't much to her life outside of school and Seiyaku. Take both of those away and there was almost nothing. Just her grandmother, who was knitting something on the other side of the room, pointedly ignoring her.

The sky was dark and brooding outside; it had been like that all week, like the weather was perpetually stuck in mourning. She wondered who had died so that the sky got like that. Was there someone the sky loved as well? Had that person passed away too, despite the sky's best efforts?

While she thought about that, she heard the sound of a car out on the street, then its doors opening and slamming closed. She closed her eyes as she began to doze off, listening languidly to the muffled sounds of voices in front of the house.

She recognized one of those voices.

 _Shiro._

Throwing herself off the couch, Kanade leapt towards her grandmother with both hands outstretched, desperately trying to reach her in time.

Almost immediately afterwards the sky was split open by the sound of gunfire as bullets ripped through the thin walls of the house, punching holes that allowed the harsh light outside to flood inside. Kanade heard her grandmother scream as they both fell to the floor, desperately trying to drag the old lady behind the couch as bullets screamed past their ears, smashing into the television, the flower pots, the kitchen tiles. For a solid minute everything was chaos, terror, the fear of loss, and then out of nowhere it was suddenly over, as the last of the bullets had been fired.

"Do you think we got em?" one voice asked, muffled outside.

"Doesn't matter. We fucked their shit up either way. Let's get out of here before the cops show up."

The car engine roared to life before tearing off down the street, and then she was alone again.

Kanade gingerly raised her head, ears still ringing from the deafening noise of gunfire. There was a hole in the couch by her elbow where a bullet had ripped through it, spilling stuffing all over her hands. She wiped her fingers on her shirt, then rubbed at her eyes, trying to clear the tears of fear away so she could see.

The house was absolutely destroyed. The furniture was ruined, riddled with bullet holes and spilling their metaphorical guts out onto the pockmarked carpet. The television was smashed in and sparking with frayed wires, the kitchen was a shattered mess, and little circles of light were dancing across the far wall, as the holes scattered across the front of the house allowed the cold light in.

Tearing her eyes away from the destruction, she instead turned to her grandmother, who she had been shielding with her arm the entire time.

"Grandma, can you get up?" she asked, her voice hoarse from stress. She lifted up the arm she had thrown over the old woman, trying to help her up.

Only then did she see the bright red blood staining her up to the elbow.

She stared at her arm in horror, thinking for a moment that the blood was hers, before realizing there were no wounds on her body.

Her heart began to weep as it dawn on her.

"Ka…de…" her grandmother's weak voice floated up to her, and she hastily turned the woman over, tearing her top open to investigate.

Terrible. A terrible wound on the left side of the old woman's abdomen, two bullet holes that had punched straight through, blood pooling slowly out onto the floor, like a widening eye ready to consume her.

"No," she whispered, feeling the terror return, the fear of the senselessness, the lack of reason. "No, no no no no no no…"

She looked around desperately for something she could use as a bandage, but found nothing. Finally she tore off her own shirt and began pressing it to the wound, applying as much pressure as her weak little arms could manage, mind racing through everything medically related she had ever learned in school.

Just as she was about to pick up the needle and thread her grandmother had been knitting with, thinking that somehow she would be able to sow the wound closed, the old woman reached out and grabbed her granddaughter's wrist.

"Kanade," she rasped, voice weak from pain. "Look at me. I need you to look at me."

"Grandma, no," Kanade sobbed, her tears falling into the pool of blood spilling out around her knees, disappearing into the sea of red. "Don't die. Please don't do this."

"Kanade…" her grandmother whispered, her voice growing weaker. "I've tried to raise you to be strong. I'm sorry I was always so cruel to you. Grandma's so, so sorry…"

"Oh god," Kanade seethed, pressing harder with her shirt, but that somehow made the bleeding worse, as it spurted through her fingers and got all over her front, staining her knees, blackening her soul. "Oh god, oh god…"

"You've grown up into a fine young woman," her grandmother said softly, her voice sounding more and more like a death rattle. "The only thing you lack is hope."

"Grandma," Kanade demanded, as the old woman suddenly went limp in her arms. "Grandma. Grandma. Grandma!"

She went into panic mode. She tried everything. She pressed on the wound until her arms hurt. She started performing CPR. She grabbed the needle and thread and tried to figure out how the fuck those surgeons in all those war movies managed to tie these gaping bloody wounds together when she could barely stop her own fingers from shaking. Eventually she threw everything to the floor and screamed, then collapsed to the floor as she began to pray, begging God to find some way to save her, to save everything, to have a reason for all the senselessness.

"Why why why why why why!"

Finally she was exhausted, but as usual it was all for nought, her grandmother was still dead, and she was still nothing. Emotionally drained, she fell backwards onto the bloodstained carpet, unable to keep herself up. The impact made blood splash all over her body, but she hardly felt it, hardly cared.

She stared at the ceiling, like she had been doing only a few minutes ago. Nothing was different. Nothing had changed. She was back to square one. So what was the point of it all? Why did she have to suffer so much? Why did these people have to die?

 _Why why why why why why?_

She lifted her head and looked at her grandmother's body, only to find the old woman's eyes staring back at her. Reaching over, she closed those eyes. Then she laid back down.

She began to sob quietly, not loudly but quietly, a soft, defeated sob that meant nothing.

She wanted to die.

[ _You don't have to do that._ ]

So now it was her turn. Her turn to shift her despair into something worth living for. The Incubator was sitting on the arm of the couch above her, looking down. He looked nothing like an angel.

[ _If you care so little for your life, give it to me. And in return, I will grant you any wish you so desire._ ]

A wish. Any wish in the world. What did she want? To bring her grandmother back to life? But what about her mother? What about her father? What about Seiyaku's father? What about those three years they had both lost to fate? There was too much to save. And Kanade didn't see the point in erasing all the suffering if it was only going to repeat itself in the future. She needed to prevent something like this from ever happening to her again. She had to give reason to the senselessness.

"I wish," she whispered, the taste of blood on her lips, "To know the purpose of everything. My own purpose. The purpose of others. I want to know the reason why things happen. And when they go wrong, I want to be able to fix them."

The Incubator closed his eyes, and almost seemed to smile.

[ _Careful, young one. With a wish like that, you just might become a god._ ]

A soft green light enveloped the house.

[ _Your wish has surpassed entropy._ ]

* * *

Once the contract was complete, Kanade became aware of a whole world separate from her own.

There were many things she would learn in the future. Concepts beyond the realm of imagination. Things that would challenge her beliefs for eternity.

But for now, there was only one thing she could see.

And that was the epic battle raging atop the Sakura Church.

Seiyaku was there. She could feel it in her soul.

After bending down to kiss her grandmother on the forehead, she left through the front door and ran towards the grassy knoll.

* * *

Once she arrived, the battle was already over.

Seiyaku saw her, and with one look seemed to understand what had happened. She merely pulled her friend into a fierce hug, then whispered, "I love you, okay?" before disappearing back into the crowd.

With those words in her heart, Kanade quietly began making her way around the ruins of the church, healing any injured girls she happened to find.

* * *

It was a few days before they had a chance to talk again. There was so much left to do that there simply wasn't the time for it. But regardless the time came. About half a week after the great battle Seiyaku met her eyes from the other side of the crowd, then disappeared through the back door.

Kanade followed her wordlessly, wondering what she was going to say.

There was a small graveyard behind the church, one surrounded by nature and wildlife. Seiyaku was standing in the center of a ring of trees, staring up at the sky, when Kanade walked up behind her.

"So," she said, "You contracted."

Kanade smiled.

"Yes."

"Why?"

She genuinely thought about that for a long moment. Why was it that she had chosen to become a magical girl? Why had she felt so strongly that this was the best decision for her to make?

"Too much has happened in my life because I failed to understand the reasons why," she said at last. "I've lost too many people because of that senselessness. I needed to stop it."

"Then, is that what you wished for? To understand everything?"

"Yes. _Everything._ "

Seiyaku regarded her best friend, then turned back to look at the trees once more.

"So, is there a god?"

Kanade closed her eyes.

"In a sense, yes. But the one you're talking about…no. No, there isn't."

Seiyaku paused, then turned back to her.

"Then doesn't that mean there isn't a real reason for anything?"

Kanade found herself laughing hysterically at that. Seiyaku just stared at her, a confused expression on her face, but she couldn't stop the laughter. It was crippling.

"Yes, that's the true irony of it," she said. "I wished to know the reason behind everything, yet in the end there was never a reason to begin with. It was a wasted wish. It accomplished nothing. Haha. Heh. Hahaha…"

She continued to laugh, but for some reason she was crying, and she really couldn't stop, she really couldn't stop…

Kanade fell to her knees on the grass, and Seiyaku rushed forward to hold her, and for the first time in forever she cried until she had nothing left.

* * *

Her grandmother's funeral took place a week later, and Kanade had to watch it from afar.

It was much too dangerous for her to actually attend the ceremony. The police were out in full force searching for her, and she had been listed as a missing person by the authorities. It was risky enough that she had left the church to come here, but Seiyaku had been unable to stop her from coming.

They were lowering the casket into the ground. With her enhanced eyes Kanade could see everything in vivid detail. Her beloved grandmother, who had actually loved her deeply all this time, even though she acted otherwise for her entire life. She wondered why that was. Why couldn't her grandmother be honest in her feelings until it was too late?

 _I've tried to raise you to be strong._

So her grandmother had chosen to pretend, in hopes of achieving a different reality. In a way, Seiyaku was like that too. Maybe that was why they seemed to see eye to eye. They both were able to ignore their present reality in favor of a dream. They were both willing to try.

She thought about how despite everything she had done, her grandmother had died anyway, that she had been unable to save the old woman. But thinking back, would she had done anything differently in that moment? If she went back in time right now and relived that moment a second time, would have simply sat back, or even protected only herself, with the knowledge that trying to protect her grandmother was useless?

No. No, she wouldn't. She would have done the same nevertheless. Even if it was hopeless she had to try. There was no other way around it.

Before she knew it the funeral was over; her grandmother was buried. Kanade blew her a kiss, then made her way back to the church.

* * *

She didn't really know how to feel.

She knew everything now. She had received the answers to all her questions. She knew things that no one else in the universe was even aware of; the true number of sentient alien races in the universe, the thought processes of the Incubators, the science of magic and the anatomy of demons. But more important than any of that, she knew that there was no god, that there was no inherent reason for anything.

So now what? Now that she knew, now what?

She thought about Seiyaku. At least now she felt that she somewhat understood the headstrong girl. Even if they had been good friends Kanade had never truly understood her until this moment. The desire to try whether there was a point to it or not.

A point. A reason. A purpose. Were those all concepts constructed for the convenience of human understanding? Like time, were they merely constructs that didn't truly exist?

Kanade didn't think so. Reasons weren't rigid and absolute like time was. Time was time whether it existed or not. It could not be manipulated.

When she reached the top of the hill where the church rested she saw Seiyaku sitting on the grass, staring out at the city by herself. She looked exactly the same as she did that one day Kanade had left her behind.

She walked up and sat down next to her friend, who used her arm to pull her close.

"I'm sorry about your grandmother," Seiyaku murmured.

Kanade closed her eyes and buried her nose in the girl's shoulder.

"Thanks."

They sat in silence, watching the city live its life below.

"You know," Seiyaku said, "Somehow I always knew we were going to be together again. Even as I sat alone on this hill, I knew. I knew the day would come."

Kanade smiled to herself. "Is that really all you have to say?"

"Yeah," Seiyaku admitted. "Oh, and this."

She kissed her.

And as their lips met, Kanade felt that maybe she was beginning to understand something about the world. Sure, maybe there was no god. Maybe there was no concrete, set in stone reason for anything in the universe that had ever happened. But in a way, that was okay too. She didn't like the idea of some crotchety old man in the sky deciding the purpose for her existence, anyway. If there was no reason for anything that was just as well, because then the choice fell to her.

She could decide what her own life would mean.

Seiyaku was leaning into her, and they both fell to the grass, both girls sighing softly as they embraced each other.

"You'll never lose me, Kanade," she whispered, kissing the girl's ear. "I'll always be here."

"I know," she breathed, even as her face turned completely red.

"How do you know?"

Biting her lip, she grabbed Seiyaku by the shoulders and pulled her close, so she could whisper in her ear.

"Because I've decided you're my reason for living."

Seiyaku felt her own blush creeping up, and distracted herself with another kiss.

"Touch'e."

* * *

A/N

So it's been a solid month since I last updated this, and for that I apologize. If there's anyone still following this story I'm sorry you had to wait so long for part two!

But yes, with that said, this is the conclusion of Kanade and Seiyaku's arc. Perhaps a bit rushed, but I was hell bent on making this only two chapters and somehow managed to pull it off. The ethos might be a bit convoluted, but I did my best.

As for the ultimate future of this story, and the general future of my meguca universe, I've decided that there will not be a full sequel to _Silent Melody._ Instead the tale will end with this story, which in itself is almost over. At the moment, I am planning to write a multichaptered arc about Five next, then one final arc about Homura and Kyouko, then it'll all be over. There might be one or two oneshots thrown in between, but for now that's the plan. It's been a good run, guys.

Thanks for reading!

~Banshee


	14. Phone Sex?

Chapter 14: Phone Sex?

Kyouko squinted tiredly at the computer screen, wondering why there were bears dancing across it.

She was in the middle of a fourteen hour shift in the office, her fifth of the week, and even with her magical constitution it was starting to get to her. Mentally more than physically, of course; Homura kept her in good shape. But she didn't know if she was psychologically capable of typing out any more documents.

Exhaling loudly, she kicked herself away from the desk, rolling back on her chair. It had been several hours already. She would give herself a well deserved break. It would have to be taken in secret, of course, since Junko was not known to be liberal in that respect.

Sitting with her head hanging off the back of the chair, she stared up at the ceiling. Homura had a day off today. She wondered what her girlfriend was doing.

Thinking about the time traveler was usually a bad idea at work, since once she started it was usually rather difficult to stop. Today was no exception, and she sighed through her nose. Cellphones weren't allowed in the workplace, so she grabbed the phone plugged it at her desk and punched in Homura's number.

She might as well indulge herself while she could.

Holding the phone up to her ear, she waited quietly as it burred, quietly praying Homura would pick up.

She did, but not in the manner Kyouko expected.

The redhead heard the sound of the call being accepted, and she was halfway through saying, "Hey, babe," when she was abruptly cut off.

Homura's harsh, panting voice sounded through the line, making it crackle with static. Kyouko couldn't tell if they were gasps of pain or pleasure, and had just realized it was the latter when the girl finally spoke.

"Call me back in thirty seconds," Homura panted, then hung up.

The line went dead, and Kyouko blinked, someone put off by the strange response. Well, Homura usually had a good reason for everything. Putting the phone down, she counted to thirty and called again, listening to the burrs a little more intently this time.

They continued for quite a while, and Homura didn't actually pick up until the very last one.

Once she did, Kyouko could only hear the same heavy panting on the other end, like the raven haired girl had just run a marathon. She knew that wasn't the reason though, and the pit of her stomach coiled up in unwonted excitement at the familiar noises, which she heard nearly every night.

"Homura," she asked thickly, "What were you doing?"

" _I…"_ The time traveler paused to catch her breath, then laughed giddily. " _I was, um…you know. A little lonely…so I…you know…and then you suddenly called…"_

"Oh," Kyouko said dumbly, blushing despite herself. It was stupid, but she found this situation _really_ arousing. "Did I interrupt your…uh, session?"

Homura laughed again, her voice husky and heady sounding. " _Quite the contrary, actually. I told you to call back for a different reason._ "

Being a bit slower than her lover, it took Kyouko a second to figure out the girl's meaning.

"What do you…" the redhead's voice trailed off as it dawned on her. "No fucking way."

" _As you often say, 'way.'"_

"You…" Kyouko's mouth was dry, and she had to lick her lips to moisten them again. "You used your phone to…"

" _I didn't know phones vibrated so strongly,_ " Homura chuckled, like this wasn't a big deal.

Kyouko just gaped at the wall of her cubicle. "You came from the vibration of my call?"

 _"I mean…yeah?"_

"Wow," she whispered, cupping her hand over the receiver. "That's fucking _hot._ "

The time traveler just giggled, humming enticingly. " _If you'd stop coming home so late I wouldn't have to do this. See you soon."_

"Yeah," Kyouko murmured, putting the phone down and trying to get back to work, but utterly failing. All sorts of kinky thoughts were running through her head like horses, particularly with blindfolds on.

After a few minutes the phone rang again. Thinking it must be Homura, she grabbed it without checking the caller ID.

"Yes, love?" she asked.

 _"Don't call me that,"_ Junko grumbled from the other end. " _Also, stop using the office lines to have phone sex."_

Kyouko flushed badly.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

A/N

So, it's been a really long time since I updated this story. I have been perfectly aware of this.

The thing is, I've been posting stuff on Fictionpress and Inkitt for the past month or so. It's the first time I've seriously worked on something that isn't fanfiction, and I find it fulfilling in a way that fanfics don't make me feel. It's different in that no one really reads them, but I'm also happy to work within my own original universe. As such, I've decided to primarily focus on finishing my first novel, though I have no definite idea of how long that's going to take.

Therefore, I'm putting an indefinite hold on fanfiction for now. This might even be goodbye, honestly. I could still update this story sporadically like I did today, but beyond that I think this is the end of the fanfic line for me. It was great writing with you all, and I'm happy about the time I spent as part of this community.

Sincerely,

~Banshee


	15. Santa's Lap

I am back - briefly - to bring some KyouHomu goodness this holiday season. There was supposed to be more than this, but things got hairy. My apologies.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen - Santa's Lap

Kyouko was no stranger to working crappy jobs.

Living on your own, on the street no less, with a bunch of gangs waiting to bust down your door and take everything you had as soon as they could read your address…sometimes having money was more important than how said money was obtained.

She had worked in construction for a while, digging ditches faster than the other workers who lived in the gym when they were chugging their protein shakes. No one had really figured out how she was able to dig ditches so fast for so long, and she had never bothered to try to explain it either. All she cared about was getting paid.

She had hated that job. She had hated most of the jobs she had ever held. But at least in the past she had always been in it for herself. Once that paycheck landed in her hands she could do what she pleased with it.

Not this time, though. This time the money was for someone else.

But that didn't make her hate the job any less.

"Hi, Santa!" screeched a fat six year old with cotton candy stuck around his lips, making Kyouko cringe internally (and externally).

"Uh…yeah. Hi there," the redhead muttered back, gesturing towards her lap. "Let's just get this over with."

The fat kid jumped onto her lap without reserve, making her grunt. He began chattering on about what he wanted for Christmas, but after a few seconds Kyouko was already daydreaming, the boy's voice fading away from the present.

She had been scrambling like mad to find a job opening since about last week. But most of the temporary positions in her area had already been filled for the time being; apparently some people were reserved to working over the holidays from the start.

In the end she had heard from Mami that their local mall was looking for a replacement Santa to sit under the tree. Something about taking a short trip to the Bahamas and getting too smashed to listen to toddlers dream big on your knee. Kyouko had been dubious about the whole thing, but sent in an application anyway. It was better than digging ditches.

Surprisingly, she got the job. So now here she was, sitting under a dinky little plastic Christmas tree in the middle of her local mall, wearing a big scratchy white beard over her equally fake padded Santa outfit, trying to look like she didn't want that stupid tree to fall over and take her out of her misery.

She still couldn't believe they had let her have the job. She wasn't even a guy, for one thing; Kyouko didn't care much for gender roles, but she figured they would have preferred someone more "Santa-like." The redhead was unsure as to whether this attested to the desperation of her own situation, or the crapiness of her local mall.

The boy's voice was starting to slow down; he was wrapping things up. Kyouko glanced at her watch and was rather vexed to find that he had gone on for several minutes. Why did kids these days need so much? When she was a kid all she had ever wanted was a warm place to sleep.

"Ahem! Well, I'm pretty sure I caught most of that. If you're good you'll get everything you wanted and then some!" Kyouko said, weeping inwardly as she put in a big fake smile. The boy nodded in agreement, then hopped off her lap, running back to his mother.

Kyouko sighed as she looked at the line waiting nearby. She glared at the long rows of parents gripping their rowdy children's hands and silently willed them to turn around and go the hell home. Come on, now. We both know this whole thing is all bull. We both know you totally regret letting your kid believe in Santa. And I totally regret being Santa.

Honestly, the only thing keeping her from giving up and walking away, thick leather boots and all, was the fact that this wasn't for her. She needed the money to buy Homura's Christmas gift.

Normally she would have tried to get something cheap and hope it would fly, but things were a little different when one's girlfriend was involved. A girlfriend of some years, no less. Kyouko knew Homura would never fault her for not having money, but that didn't mean the redhead was okay with it too.

Even still, this year's gift would be different from all the rest. This time her gift would actually matter.

Kyouko grew nervous and fidgety at the thought of it. She tried to take her mind off of it by focusing on the task at hand, looking back towards the line to see who was next.

Oh, just her girlfriend. Swell.

 _Wait, what the fuck?_

"Homura?" Kyouko breathed, stunned as the raven haired beauty walked up to her. Her girlfriend was wearing a chic sweater that looked pretty good on her, and Kyouko was momentarily distracted. But she quickly got back on track, which was the track where she wondered why the hell Akemi Homura was turning around so she could sit down on Santa's lap.

"Hello there, Santa," Homura said diplomatically. Kyouko just gaped at her, fake beard hanging at an odd angle off her face. Some people in the line were staring and whispering to each other; it was strange for someone so obviously adult to be doing this.

"Homura," Kyouko whispered, leaning in, "What the hell are you doing? How did you find me here?"

"I'm sure I have no idea what you mean," her girlfriend said, though she betrayed a tinge of a smile. "I simply wanted to make sure Santa knew what I want for Christmas."

Kyouko sighed. It was evident that Homura was intent on messing with her, no matter what. Well, fine. This was better than listening to some six year old talk. And the feeling of Homura sitting on her lap was _way_ better.

"Alright, little girl," the redhead said gruffly, adjusting her beard. "So what is it you wanted from Santa?"

Homura smirked at the adopted role play. To be frank, she had merely been passing through the mall when she spotted Kyouko sitting under the tree. The redhead might have been disguised in a sense, but Homura could discern her lover from a mile away. Kyouko had said she would be busy leading up to Christmas, but hadn't explained why. Homura had her suspicions, but knew the girl didn't want to be asked.

That didn't mean there wasn't room for a little fun, though.

"Well…" Homura murmured contemplatively, leaning a little closer. Kyouko stiffened slightly when Homura's hair tickled her neck, the long straight locks hiding her face from the confused onlookers.

"I've been giving it a lot of thought…" Homura said softly, sending chills down Kyouko's spine, as she began to whisper.

Kyouko blinked when the first sentence registered in her brain. Oh god, no. Not this. God damn you, Homura. Her mischievous streak had rubbed off on the time traveler after all their time together. To think that Homura would have the balls to do this in the middle of a crowded mall-

"What I want for Christmas is your fingers inside of me," Homura cooed, her voice torturously soft. "I want you to work me until I can't walk straight in the morning. I want all my coworkers to wonder what's wrong with me. I haven't seen you all week, Kyouko. Don't you think that's a little cruel?"

"I…" Kyouko swallowed thickly, glancing nervously at the rest of the line. "Um-"

"I want you to take this ribbon out of my hair and tie my hands to the headboard," Homura continued, steamrolling over her lover's defenses. "I want you to make me beg. And when I come, I want you to hear me say your name."

Kyouko was flushed and hot under her beard. Homura had taken way more time than she was supposed to, and the people in line were starting to get impatient, but the redhead hardly cared. How could she, when Homura was telling her how much she missed the redhead's hot breath against her neck, how much she wanted to fist those crimson locks in her hands and _pull_ …

"I want all those things and more," Homura murmured gently, giggling in a way that made Kyouko's heart skip a beat. "I want those things forever. But more than that, I just want you. Because I love you that much."

Kyouko blinked, and her blush burned on her face for a slightly different reason.

"Well, that's all I had to say," Homura said, all business once again. She got off Kyouko's lap and left the tree, trailing her fingers across her lover's hand. "Don't be late on Christmas. I want my gift early, you hear?"

Kyouko just stared at Homura as she sauntered away. The next kid ran up to jump into her lap, which had the redhead dismayed, because she really would have preferred to keep her legs pressed tight together for a while longer.


	16. Homura gets tied up

Chapter Sixteen - Homura gets tied up

The interior of Homura's apartment was quiet. All the lights had been turned off, and a small Christmas tree sat quietly in the corner, a small army of gifts scattered around it.

Then something thumped against the outside of the door, disturbing the silence. There was a brief scuffling of hands in pockets, as a key was pulled out and hastily inserted into the lock, and the door fell open beneath the weight of two feverishly occupied individuals.

Said door was quickly shut again, but only because Kyouko had shoved Homura up against it, pressing so close to the girl that she could hardly breathe.

"Woah there," Homura gasped, laughing between greedy kisses. "Calm down, Kyouko."

"Shut up," the redhead growled, grabbing her lover by the chin to hold her still. "How am I supposed to stay calm after that shit you pulled in the mall?"

Homura's eyes fluttered shut when Kyouko engaged her once more, and she struggled to get words out as the redhead began to promptly undress her. "I just thought you could use some encouragement."

"Well, consider me encouraged," Kyouko said bluntly, hooking her hands beneath Homura's behind and hoisting her up. The raven haired girl yelped, her legs naturally coming up to wrap around the redhead's waist.

"Kyouko-" Homura started, but was quickly silenced by another kiss. She largely gave up on verbal communication at that point, instead wrapping her arms around the redhead's neck and pulling her as close as she physically could, craving the girl's touch. They had been apart for a full two weeks leading up to the holidays; work had reared its typically ugly head. Now they had to make up for lost time.

Kyouko groaned softly as her fingers pressed into the soft flesh of Homura's thighs, feeling the strain of keeping the time traveler hoisted up against the door but not caring. Her girlfriend had come into this with a game plan, and Kyouko could tell. She was wearing the leggings Kyouko had picked out for her. Homura knew she loved it when she wore those leggings, and Kyouko knew that she knew. The smaller girl was wreathed by the smallest hint of perfume. Mascara graced the borders of her eyes, minimal but bewitching nonetheless.

She wanted to devour her. She wanted to sink her fingers in and never let go.

She did precisely that, pushing herself against her lover and grinding their hips together. Homura cursed around the redhead's tongue, her fingers tightening in the girl's crimson locks. Kyouko was too enthralled to feel smug about the small victory; she was too busy reveling in the softness of Homura's skin, the sensation of her. A sixth sense that opened up only when she made love with the woman she loved.

Homura gasped as Kyouko abandoned her lips, instead trailing her mouth along the girl's neck. The redhead's ear hovered in front of her nose, so she closed her lips around that instead, needing to keep it occupied, mewling her lover's name with a naked earnestness that made Kyouko's libido surge.

"Fuck this," she grunted, feeling her shoulders burn from exertion. This wasn't going to last them all the way.

Turning away from the door, she practically threw Homura over her shoulder and sprinted for the stairs, heading for their bedroom. The time traveler yelped, then laughed as Kyouko literally flew up the stairs, comically motivated.

A moment later the door to their room was kicked open, and Homura felt herself being thrown onto the bed. She propped herself up on her elbows and grinned at Kyouko, but felt the expression falter when she saw the redhead's face; the look held in those eyes were smoldering.

Kyouko slid her hand beneath Homura's top and reached her chest, holding the smaller girl down against the bed. She was still in that chic sweater from earlier, the one that hugged her narrow shoulders in a way that made Kyouko incapable of getting fuck all done at work, which she both loved and hated. That and the tight leggings that made her thighs feel like silk as they pressed against her, the delicate color of her skin, those eyes that went on forever, and the way her hair pooled over the bed like liquid obsidian…she was perfect.

"Jesus Christ, you're gorgeous," Kyouko grumbled, sounding almost annoyed by the fact.

Homura actually blushed at this, unused to be complemented so openly. "It's all for you, you know."

"I know," Kyouko whispered, leaning down and brushing their lips together.

Homura sighed as they embraced, eyes closed and hands wandering. Kyouko's hands caressed their way up her lover's body, making it twitch and writhe beneath her touch. One hand grabbed the lower hem of the sweater and pulled it up, exposing Homura's clothed chest.

The other came up and thumbed the girl's ear, which earned Kyouko a soft noise of approval. Then the redhead reached up and grabbed the end of Homura's ribbon, pulling it free from the girl's hair.

Homura blinked as Kyouko took hold of her wrists, guiding them above her head. "What are you doing?"

"Giving you what you asked for," the redhead smirked.

Comprehension dawned on Homura's face as Kyouko tied her hands to the headboard, double knotting the ribbon to make sure the time traveler couldn't escape even if she wanted to. That ribbon seemed to be made out of some divine material; it never broke or frayed, like some sort of supple steel.

Homura squirmed when Kyouko pushed her bra up, leaving it as soon as the girl's nipples were exposed; she was too impatient to bother taking them off entirely. A wanting mouth lowered itself to take one breast in, making Homura keen as her body went taut.

"Kyouko," she moaned, for no particular reason at all. Her wrists strained against their restraints, and Kyouko felt a thrill at watching her struggle.

Her other hand came down to pull down the girl's skirt and pantyhose, running a finger up against the soaked region beyond.

"What was it your asked Santa for?" Kyouko asked, feigning innocence. Homura just keened unintelligibly, biting her lip. "Hands tied to the headboard…and my fingers inside you?"

"Yes!" Homura said impatiently, straining against the ribbon around her hands.

"I'm afraid that isn't very specific," Kyouko elaborated, sounding truly disappointed. "You didn't specify between hard or soft, fast or slow…"

" _Hard_. I want it hard and fast. Finish me quick," Homura growled into her lover's ear. " _Now."_

Kyouko laughed as she hilted her fingers in one slick go, making Homura blush like mad when the wave of pleasure hit her. She began working the smaller girl in earnest, intent on delivering on her promise, employing everything she knew about the time traveler's body to bring her to that peak as soon as possible.

"Nn…Kyou…ah…" Homura keened, mushing her face against the pillow as the redhead began to grind her hip against the time traveler's clit, while simultaneously working her with two fingers. She kept twitching around her core, wrists straining against their ribbony confines so hard that Kyouko was vaguely afraid she would rip the headboard clean off the bed.

It was an amazing spectacle to behold. For some reason Homura was blushing like crazy, even though they had had sex so many times before this. Kyouko couldn't explain it, but she found it strangely arousing; there was something in the way Homura was trying and failing to hide her flushed cheeks from her. She knew how important control was to her lover. But right now, Homura was powerless.

Grabbing one of the girl's legs, Kyouko threw it over her shoulder, turning Homura's body at an angle. Homura swore when this allowed the redhead to reach even deeper inside her, and suddenly she was closed, and Kyouko knew it in the way the girl clenched around her fingers.

Taking her other hand off the girl's breast, Kyouko hooked her thumb inside Homura's mouth, feeling the girl's ragged breath warming her skin, the vibrations of the delicious sounds that she was making. They were so close now, just a few more seconds, and her lover would come undone.

Come to think of it, there was one more thing on her girlfriend's list, wasn't there?

Leaning close so that her ear was by Homura's mouth, she hilted her fingers a second time and grunted, "Say my name."

The headboard groaned as Homura came, her hips snapping up and going taut as the orgasm arrested her entire body. " _Kyouko,_ " she ground out, roughly, thickly, with so much promise, sending a hot rush through the redhead's spine that ended at her own core.

Homura collapsed back onto the bed, thoroughly exhausted. Kyouko sat at the end of the bed, casually licking her fingers clean of her lover's juices.

After a few moments she untied Homura from the headboard, setting her free. The time traveler rubbed at her wrists, which had been made raw by the friction; she hadn't even noticed, in the heat of the moment.

Kyouko took the girl's hand and kissed the wounds, sparks of red magic flying out to tend to the damage. "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to hurt you."

"You didn't," Homura assured her, sighing as the wounds faded. "You were simply following orders."

Kyouko grinned at that. "And I did a damn good job of it, too."

"Indeed," Homura agreed, reaching over and picking up her ribbon. "Now get on your back. It's your turn."

"Huh?"

* * *

A/N

There was supposed to be a third chapter after this in which Homura and Kyouko get engaged, but things came up and I was unable to finish the chapter in time (or even start it, if I'm being honest). I've sort of lost my motivation to pick it back up. I've been away from fanfiction for so long. I felt a little awkward writing these two again; it might have reflected in the final product.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed what I managed to cough up. Merry Christmas to all!

~Banshee


End file.
